A trip under high tension.
Five gendarmes were “injured” in New Caledonia in clashes between demonstrators and the police caused by Gérald Darmanin's visit to Nouméa, the High Commission of the Republic said on Wednesday.
In the morning, demonstrators who wanted to go to the government, where the Minister of the Interior was received, were blocked by the security system made up of mobile gendarmes and agents of the National Police.
“Three waves of stampedes were repelled by the mobile gendarmes who used tear gas grenades,” indicated the communication from the Territorial Directorate of the National Police (DTPN) to AFP.
Stone throwing accompanied the crowd movements and “five gendarmes were injured”, detailed Louis Le Franc, the High Commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia, in a press release shared on Facebook, specifying that five people had been arrested .
According to the police, no damage was noted elsewhere.
Calm quickly returned after the departure of the minister and the lifting of the security system.
Violence “condemned with the greatest firmness”
The 500 demonstrators, according to the DTPN's estimate, responded to the call from the cell coordinating field actions of the Caledonian Union, the largest independence party.
They demand the withdrawal of the constitutional bill presented by Gérald Darmanin in the Council of Ministers on January 29.
The project aims to open up the electorate for local elections, currently restricted to natives and residents present before 1998 in New Caledonia.
“There is no question of unfreezing the electorate,” insisted to the channel La 1ère Daniel Goa, the president of the Caledonian Union, present in the procession this Wednesday morning.
“If we lived in peace for forty years, it is because the electorate was stabilized.
It's between Caledonians that we talk to each other, that we try to build something.
And it is not by drowning them in a mass of immigration that we will be able to build something,” he accused.
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A delegation of three demonstrators was received by members of the local government and then delivered a letter addressed to Gérald Darmanin.
Asked about these tensions during discussions with the press, the Minister of the Interior and Overseas did not wish to comment.
For his part, High Commissioner Louis Le Franc “condemns with the greatest firmness the violence committed”.
In his press release, he reaffirmed “his attachment to peaceful dialogue in New Caledonia”, and recalled that “the right to demonstrate (…) can only be exercised with strict respect for public order”.