Plan to expand the electoral roll gets the green light as New Caledonia is rocked by its worst unrest in more than 30 years.
France has adopted controversial reforms to New Caledonia's voting rules, leading to the worst unrest in the Pacific territory in more than 30 years.
New Caledonia's administration said more than 130 people had been arrested in the unrest that began on Monday night with cars and buildings set on fire and shops looted.
The “serious unrest” continues, the High Commission of the Republic in New Caledonia said in a statement on Wednesday morning, adding that a night curfew and a ban on public gatherings will remain in force.
A prison escape attempt was also foiled, he added.
Anger has been boiling for weeks over plans in Paris to change the constitution to allow more people to vote in New Caledonia's provincial elections. Critics say the measure would marginalize the indigenous Kanak people, who make up about 40 percent of the population, by allowing newer Europeans to vote.
France says rules must be changed to support democracy on the island.
The National Assembly in Paris adopted the measure after a long debate shortly after midnight, by 351 votes to 153.
French President Emmanuel Macron later urged New Caledonian representatives in a letter to “unambiguously condemn all this violence” and “call for calm,” the AFP news agency reported.
Long lasting problems
New Caledonia, which has a population of almost 300,000 people, lies between Australia and Fiji and is one of France's largest overseas territories.
About 17,000 kilometers (10,563 miles) from Paris, the territory is a key part of France's claim as a Pacific power, but the Kanak people have long chafed at the government in Paris.
Denise Fisher, Australia's former consul general in New Caledonia, said she was not surprised by the violence of recent days, telling Al Jazeera it showed “a real and fundamental breakdown in the way the territory is managed”.
The voting rules are part of the so-called Noumea Agreement of 1998.
Under the deal, France agreed to cede the territory more political power and limit voting in New Caledonia's provincial and assembly elections to those who resided on the island at the time or were born there.
Some 40,000 French citizens have moved to New Caledonia since 1998, and the changes expand the electoral roll to include those who have lived in the territory for 10 years.
The Noumea Agreement also included a series of three independence referendums, the last of which took place in December 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vote was boycotted by pro-independence groups, who supported remaining in France, and rejected the result.
They have been calling for a new vote.
Socioeconomic marginalization, land dispossession and disenfranchisement of the Kanaks have long been a source of violent civil unrest in New Caledonia.
In a 1987 referendum, independence supporters, angry that the territory's recent residents had been granted the right to vote, also led a boycott. The overwhelming vote to remain in France sparked violent protests and ultimately the 1988 Matignon Agreement, aimed at rectifying inequality, and the Noumea Agreement, with its vision of “shared sovereignty.”
“The concerns are deep-seated,” Fisher said.
