Nicolas Molinari was only 22 years old. The young gendarme, belonging to the Melun squadron (Seine-et-Marne), was seriously injured by a gunshot to the head on Wednesday in New Caledonia. At the time of the events, he was carrying out a law enforcement mission in Plum, not far from Nouméa. He was transported to the Pacific New Caledonia Marine Infantry Regiment for treatment. He succumbed to his injuries at 11:46 p.m., the gendarmerie said in a press release.
“He died after a night of protection in a particularly dangerous place,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin detailed on Wednesday during questions to the government in the Senate.
The victim joined the gendarmerie in 2020, as a volunteer deputy gendarme. After a stint at the Montluçon gendarmerie school, he was assigned to the local brigade of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, in the Drôme, then to the surveillance and intervention platoon of the gendarmerie of Romans-sur- Isère.
Admitted to the non-commissioned officer competition
In 2022, he was admitted to the gendarmerie non-commissioned officer competition. At the end of his schooling, he chose the mobile gendarmerie and the mobile gendarmerie squadron 211/1 of Melun, in Île-de-France. Aged 22, he was single with no children.
The French territory of the South Pacific is in the grip of an insurrectional situation, against a backdrop of contestation of the constitutional reform voted on Tuesday by the National Assembly. Despite calls for calm from the main political parties in the territory and the authorities, the wave of violence that began on Monday, the most serious since the 1980s, has shown no sign of abating.