2 killed in restive New Caledonia during a French police operation

PARIS -- Two people have been killed in New Caledonia during a police operation to apprehend activists suspected of involvement in deadly unrest over attempts by Paris to amend the French constitution and change voting lists in the French Pacific territory, according to French media reports on Thursday.

Authorities in New Caledonia confirmed police intervention in the Saint Louis area near the capital, Nouméa, and the two deaths. They did not provide further details.

Last week, French authorities in New Caledonia announced an extended curfew, banning gatherings and travel across the archipelago from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for fear of protests by the Indigenous Kanak people around next week’s anniversary of the French takeover of the Pacific territory.

The Kanak people have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific archipelago in 1853 and granted citizenship to all Kanaks in 1957. The latest violence flared on May 13 in response to attempts by President Emmanuel Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which Kanaks feared would further marginalize them by granting more rights to recent arrivals from mainland France.

Macron declared a state of emergency two days later, rushing in 3,500 troops to help police quell the unrest. Thirteen people, mostly Kanaks, have died in the violence, including two members of the security forces. One of them was killed after his weapon accidentally discharged.

The aim of police intervention overnight Wednesday was to arrest 10 people who have been suspected of participating in two-weeks of violence in May that included blocking whole districts around the capital and beyond, the archipelago’s main road, arson and looting.

In June, 11 Kanak activists were arrested in a broad police raid targeting the Field Action Coordination Unit. The detentions were part of a police investigation launched on May 17, just days after protests against the Paris-pushed voting reform turned violent.

Seven of them, including Christian Tein, a Kanak leader of the pro-independence movement known as The Field Action Coordination Unit, were flown 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles) away to mainland France for pretrial detention.

The charges that they face include complicity in attempted murder, organized theft with a weapon, organized destruction of private property while endangering people, and participation in a criminal group with an intent to plan a crime.

Tein’s group accused French authorities of “colonial practices” and demanded the activists’ immediate release and return to their homeland. In a recent statement, posted on social media the group vowed that “the Kanak people will never give up on their desire for independence with peaceful means.”

In the past seven months, The Field Action Coordination Unit has organized peaceful marches in New Caledonia against French authorities and the Paris-backed voting reform. It has now been side-lined as Macron's new Prime Minister Michel Barnier wrestles with political blocks in a fractured parliament to form a government following inconclusive legislative elections in July.