French security forces have launched major campaigns in New Caledonia to try to regain control of the island after a sixth night of violent unrest amid days of deadly riots.
The moves come as the Australian government confirms its defence force is ready to fly to New Caledonia once it receives the all-clear from France that it is safe to do so.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 600 gendarmes had been tasked with taking back control of the 60km road between Noumea and its international airport, which remains closed due to the unrest.
France's highest-ranking official in New Caledonia, High Commissioner Louis Le Franc, said the forces had successfully smashed through 60 road blocks along the Route Territoriale 1 on Sunday.
However, the road was not yet open as debris needed to be cleared — a task he said would take several days.
Mr Le Franc vowed in a televised address that "Republican order will be re-established whatever the cost".
He also confirmed security forces would launch new raids against independence strongholds across the country, adding that if separatists "want to use their arms, they will be risking the worst."
A night-time curfew, state of emergency, ban on TikTok and arrival of hundreds of troops from mainland France failed to prevent more unrest overnight Saturday and into Sunday.
The high commissioner's office said that unidentified groups set two fires and raided a petrol station, with 230 rioters arrested.
Despite those reports, authorities insisted the situation was improving.
"The night has been calmer," the commissioner's office said.
Local media reported a public library was among the buildings burned.
The mayor's office told AFP there was "no way of confirming for the moment" as the "neighbourhood remains inaccessible".
Local authorities have said six people — including two gendarmes — have been killed since Monday, amid riots that have been sparked by proposed voting reforms in the French territory.
A 6pm to 6am curfew remains in place across New Caledonia until the end of the state of emergency on May 27 and the sale of alcohol is banned.
Two groups challenging the French government's move to ban TikTok on freedom-of-speech grounds will have their case heard in France on Tuesday local time.
Loading...ADF 'ready to fly'
Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the government was working to support Australians in New Caledonia.
"The Australian Defence Force is ready to fly, pending commercial flights resuming," Senator Wong wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Australian tourist Maxwell Winchester and his wife Tiffany were due to leave Noumea on Tuesday.
Instead, he told AFP, they have been barricaded inside a resort halfway between the city and the airport, with dwindling supplies.
"They basically burned up every exit on the motorway and all the roads that you could use to get anywhere. So wherever you are, you're blockaded," Mr Winchester said.
He said they were about to run out of food and their predicament was increasingly desperate.
"The resort staff are basically using black market sources to get something," he said.
"Every night we had to sleep with one eye open.
"This morning at an exit near here, the gendarmerie was coming through and there was a shootout."
Local authorities have said this week that there is enough food to last two months in New Caledonia, but distribution was an issue in the unrest.
The office of the French High Commission in New Caledonia said on X that 103 containers of food and medicine had been secured at the port of Noumea by customs officials.
It said state services had been mobilised to ensure its distribution.
Concerns have also been raised about access to medicine, with French authorities sending blood supplies to deal with the "critical" situation.
Cycle of violence
New Caledonia has been a French territory since the mid-1800s.
Almost two centuries on, its politics remain dominated by debate about whether the islands should be part of France, autonomous or independent — with opinions split roughly along ethnic lines.
The latest cycle of violence was sparked by plans in Paris to impose new voting rules that could give tens of thousands of non-Indigenous residents voting rights.
Indigenous Kanak people make up nearly 40 per cent of the population.
Pro-independence groups say any such change to voting rules would dilute the Kanak vote.
The islands are also home to sizeable Vietnamese and Polynesian communities.
On Sunday the presidents of four other French overseas territories — La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean and Guyane in South America — called for the withdrawal of the voting reform in an open letter.
"Only a political response can halt the rising violence and prevent civil war," they warned, saying they "call on the government to withdraw the constitutional reform bill aiming to change the electoral roll ... as the precursor to a peaceful dialogue".
French officials have accused a separatist group known as CCAT of being behind the violence and have placed at least 10 of its activists under house arrest.
CCAT on Friday called for "a time of calm to break the spiral of violence."
Around 1,000 security forces began reinforcing the 1,700 officers already on the ground from Thursday.
Efforts to negotiate peace have so far stumbled, although the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said he had begun contacting pro and anti-independence officials individually on Friday.
ABC/AFP/Reuters
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2024-05-19 13:07:41Z
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