A person suspected of a homicide during the riots in New Caledonia has surrendered to the police, the High Commissioner of the Republic in New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, announced on Friday.
“There are much more serious cases that have taken place, cases involving assassinations. So, an author surrendered. The others, the research has been launched,” he declared during a press briefing in Nouméa.
The High Commissioner did not provide any additional details, either on the identity of this person, or on the homicide concerned.
Nearly a thousand internal security personnel, notably police officers and gendarmes, arrived at Le Caillou during the night from Thursday to Friday, adding to the 1,700 members of the police already there.
These reinforcements should make it possible to “reconquer all areas of the urban area [de Nouméa] that we have lost and that it is up to us to recover as quickly as possible,” declared Louis Le Franc.
The State representative referred to “three zones”, disadvantaged neighborhoods of Greater Nouméa populated mainly by indigenous people.
Control of several districts in New Caledonia “is no longer assured”, the State representative in this French territory in the South Pacific admitted on Friday, hoping that reinforcements will make it possible to “reconquer” these areas after four nights of tensions .
“Reinforcements will arrive (…) to control the areas which have escaped us in recent days, whose control is no longer assured,” declared to the press in Nouméa the High Commissioner of the Republic, Louis Le Franc .
The state of emergency decreed in New Caledonia has made it possible “to return to a calmer and more peaceful situation in greater Nouméa”, state services in this French territory in the South Pacific indicated on Friday morning (Caledonian time). “The state of emergency has made it possible, for the first time since Monday, to return to a calmer and more peaceful situation in greater Nouméa, despite the fires in a school and two businesses,” writes the High Commission of the Republic in a press release. In total, five people including two gendarmes have died since the start of the riots on Caillou, against a backdrop of revolt against a controversial electoral reform.
The videoconference that Emmanuel Macron had proposed to New Caledonian elected officials on Thursday could not be held, the “different actors not wishing to dialogue with each other for the moment”, announced the Elysée. “The situation on site makes it difficult,” the presidency also noted. Consequently, the Head of State will discuss “directly with elected officials”, separately, she added, without further details.
Thursday evening, the Elysée indicated that these discussions should take place this Friday. The videoconference was initially to be held at the end of a new crisis meeting which took place at the Elysée from 11 a.m.
Including two police officers. One of the two was the victim of an “accidental shooting” by a colleague on Thursday.
The archipelago has been in the grip of riots since Monday due to a constitutional reform reforming the electoral body in the archipelago’s provincial election. This reform ignited the powder, triggering a wave of demonstrations. A curfew has been in place since Monday evening. A state of emergency was declared on Wednesday.