Emmanuel Macron is trying to find a way out of the crisis after nights of riots in New Caledonia which left four dead, including a gendarme, and hundreds injured: after resolving to declare a state of emergency, he will chair a “follow-up meeting” on the situation on Thursday morning. The state of emergency, which comes into force from 8 p.m. Paris time (5 a.m. in Nouméa), allows the State to have reinforced powers to ensure the maintenance of order.
Gabriel Attal, for his part, announced Wednesday evening the deployment of soldiers “to secure” the ports and airport of New Caledonia as well as the ban on the social network TikTok, at the opening of an interministerial crisis meeting at the Ministry of Defense. ‘Interior. He must chair a point again on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. in Beauvau.
A sign of the seriousness of the situation: the President of the Republic “postponed” a long-planned trip to Flamanville (Manche), where he was to inaugurate the EPR, a new generation nuclear reactor whose commissioning, after years of delay and disappointments, symbolizes his energy sovereignty strategy, one of the main pillars of his five-year term (and of the European campaign led by his camp).
Because the situation remains more unstable than ever in New Caledonia, while the establishment of a night curfew in Nouméa has not reduced the tension. “All violence is intolerable and will be the subject of an implacable response,” promised the Head of State in a press release, published before the announcement of the death of a gendarme, the fourth victim since the start of the clashes. . At issue: a reform of the local electoral body, contested by the Kanak separatists who fear being put in the minority.
Constitutional reform
The violence which broke out on Monday did not prevent deputies from voting during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday on this constitutional bill, which must still be definitively adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate meeting in Congress.
This last step will take place “before the end of June”, unless there is an agreement between local political forces, warned Emmanuel Macron. Gabriel Attal announced that he would propose “in the coming hours a date to receive them at Matignon” with Gérald Darmanin, in order to “build” a “global political solution”.
“If we find consensus, we can continue to move forward. If consensus is not found, we will have to continue to move forward in the way we had planned,” added the head of government during current questions in the Senate, recalling that “the return to Order is a prerequisite for everything.
But, for Michel Rocard’s former advisor at the time of the Matignon agreements of 1988, Jean-François-Merle, “the calendar as an ax never works, it produces the opposite effect”. “Now that the fire has been started”, we will have to “find a mediation solution” with “people who can be considered above the fray”, he added, acquiescing in the suggestion of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin mentioned in the press and observing that “someone like Edouard Philippe would also have legitimacy”.
“Gestures that soothe”
Another former head of government, the socialist Jean-Marc Ayrault, also declared that it was “absolutely necessary to set up a dialogue mission”. But “if the deadline is the end of June, it is a little short”, he underlined, recalling that the Council of State has set “the final date for holding provincial elections in December 2025”. There is therefore “still time to restore confidence, but without overbidding,” he insisted.
Except that the oppositions are increasing the pressure around the security of the archipelago. “There cannot be dialogue in the doglit,” insisted the leader of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, his counterpart in the Assembly, Olivier Marleix, believing that “we must also mobilize the army”. On the far right, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour had each called for the establishment of a state of emergency since the start of the violence.
Former socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls also considered that “the return to order cannot be negotiated”. Nevertheless, “we must resume the thread of dialogue”, he added, assuring that “the bases of a global agreement exist” on condition of “not closing the possibility for the Kanaks to vote again one day” despite the three lost referendums on independence.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part, challenged the Head of State on “.