Riots rock France's New Caledonia over voting reform
One person was killed, hundreds more were injured, shops were looted and public buildings torched during a second night of rioting in New Caledonia, authorities said on Wednesday, as anger over constitutional reforms from Paris boiled over. Protests against the reform turned violent Monday night, with shots fired at security forces, vehicles torched and shops looted in the worst unrest the French overseas territory has seen since the 1980s. In response, authorities deployed a heavy security contingent, imposed a curfew, banned public gatherings and closed the main airport. "More than 130 arrests have been made and several dozen rioters have been taken into custody and will be brought before the courts," the French High Commission of the Republic in New Caledonia said in a statement early Wednesday morning. Describing the "serious public disturbances" as ongoing, the High Commission decried widespread looting and torching of businesses and public property, including schools. It added that classes will remain scrapped until further notice and the main airport shut to commercial flights. The unrest flared as lawmakers in France debated a bill that would increase the number of people eligible to cast ballots in the territory's provincial elections, a change critics fear could marginalise Indigenous people. Following lengthy and at times tense debates, the National Assembly in Paris adopted the reform shortly after midnight, by 351 votes to 153. Afterwards, French President Emmanuel Macron appealed for calm on all sides. In the Noumea Accord of 1998, France vowed to gradually give more political power to the Pacific island territory of nearly 300,000 people. Under the agreement, New Caledonia has held three referendums over its ties with France, all rejecting independence. But independence retains support, particularly among the Indigenous Kanak people. The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia's voter lists have not been updated since 1998 -- meaning that island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere in the past 25 years do not have the right to take part in provincial polls. The French government has branded the exclusion of one out of five people from voting as "absurd", while separatists fear that expanding voter lists would benefit pro-France politicians and reduce the weight of the Kanaks. (AFP)