France arrests 8 in New Caledonia including independence leader

NOUMEA, France: French police arrested eight people in Pacific territory New Caledonia Wednesday, prosecutors said, including one of the leaders of the pro-independence CCAT movement that organised weeks of sometimes deadly unrest last month.

CCAT chief Christian Tein was the only detainee named by Yves Dupas, chief prosecutor in New Caledonia’s capital Noumea, as being arrested for “organised crime” offences, under which they can be held for up to 96 hours.

Violence erupted in New Caledonia, around 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) northeast of Australia, on May 13 over French plans to update the electoral roll to include people with more than 10 years’ residency.

Indigenous Kanak people feared that the move would leave them in a permanent minority in the territory and put independence definitively out of reach.

Nine people including two police officers have been killed, hundreds wounded, and around 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of damage inflicted.

France responded by sending more than 3,000 troops and police to New Caledonia — almost 17,000 kilometres from Paris.

Since then, the constitutional reform needed to change the territory’s electoral law has de facto been abandoned, after President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament for a snap election on June 30 and July 7.

Pro-independence activist group CCAT was created in November last year to oppose the electoral reform plans.

Paris has blamed it for violence since the start of the riots in New Caledonia, with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin calling it a “mafia-style organisation”.

Police on Wednesday surrounded the headquarters of the pro-independence Caledonian Union (UC) party in Noumea, which also hosts CCAT’s offices, an AFP journalist saw.

Officers had cleared a street barricade, while several eyewitnesses said they had also searched the building.

“Law enforcement entered the offices and took photos, especially of documents,” said Reine Hue, a UC elected official from the Loyalty Islands province east of New Caledonia’s main island.

Prosecutor Dupas said CCAT’s offices had been searched “without incident”.

UC denounced Wednesday’s “abusive” arrests in a statement, charging that “local anti-independence leaders and criminal militiamen are able to swagger about in total freedom”.

But the party also urged followers “not to respond to the provocation”, calling for calm until more was known about the arrests.

Police had set up a massive security perimeter around their central Noumea headquarters, where the detainees were being held.

Surrounding roads were closed to traffic, an AFP journalist saw, while many shops, banks and government offices had closed by late morning.