‘We need calm’: New Caledonia prepares for France elections as tensions simmer

The unusually long queues to register a proxy vote in New Caledonia suggests turnout will be significantly higher than normal for this weekend’s French election, weeks after months of turmoil that at one point saw deadly riots and the closure of the territory’s international airport.

Among residents of the French Pacific territory, which lies 16,500km from Paris, politics has been a popular topic this week.

“We need calm. The stakes of these elections are important,” says Audrey, a pro-independence activist in her thirties from the residential neighbourhood of Tina in the capital, Nouméa.

Bastien, from the wealthy Rivière Salée area, who is in his forties and opposes independence, is also keen to vote. “It’s important to say that we want to remain French and this election is a way to show it,” he says.

Related: Macron’s handling of New Caledonia is not working, we need a new way | Jimmy Naouna

But the business owner is critical of the elected officials he has previously supported, questioning their strategy and failure to engage properly with those on the other side of the political divide.

Tensions remain high in the Pacific archipelago weeks after riots broke out over proposed voting laws, with street barricades still in place in many areas. A police station and a town hall were set on fire earlier this week after seven independence activists linked to a group accused of orchestrating last month’s riots were arrested and flown to France.

Proxy voting has become popular because residents worry they might not be able to get past roadblocks on voting day.

The riots began after lawmakers in Paris approved a constitutional amendment to allow recent arrivals to the territory to vote in provincial elections, a decision – since put on ice by President Emmanuel Macron – that the indigenous Kanak population feared would further dilute their own influence. Kanaks make up about 40% of New Caledonia’s population.

Hundreds of French police were flown in to restore order in the territory, and the security presence remains high. About 3,500 law enforcement officers are on the ground, up from the usual 500, and polling in this election has been consolidated into just a few locations.

Turnout in the territory is usually low – just 32% of the 220,000 registered voters in the first round of parliamentary elections in 2022 and 36% in 2017. This is particularly evident among pro-independence voters, because of changes to electoral boundaries made in 1986 that minimised the Kanak vote in both of the territory’s constituencies and put them off voting. Since then, no pro-independence candidate has managed to get elected to the National Assembly.

But this election takes place at a time when both sides of the electorate are unhappy with the status quo.

Pro-France voters are resentful towards Macron, feeling both that he bears some responsibility for the crisis that has unfolded and that they have been abandoned by Paris in their hour of need.

For those who support independence, Macron’s handling of New Caledonia and the voting reform are unquestionably to blame for the turmoil that has led to the destruction of large parts of the local economy by a youth that felt marginalised and let down by his policies.

“For most people, there is a rejection of political parties, of elected officials. This crisis should call them into question,” Hyppolite Sinéwami, president of the Inaat Ne Kanaky association of traditional Kanak chiefs, told reporters on Wednesday.

“We need to rejuvenate political representatives on all sides, both loyalist and independence supporters, and they should think above all about the country.”

This rejection is reflected in the 18 candidates running in the two constituencies.

The FLNKS pro-independence alliance failed to agree on a joint list and the main independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), is putting forward its own candidates, including Emmanuel Tjibaou, the son of a FLNKS leader who was assassinated in 1989.

The hardline CCAT, which organised the recent protests, only instructed its supporters to block the right wing, without directly endorsing the UC candidates.

Notably, neither of the two outgoing deputies – the radical Nicolas Metzdorf, who acted as a rapporteur on the planned electoral reforms, and the more moderate Philippe Dunoyer, who were allied with Macron’s coalition – have sought his centrist party’s endorsement this time round.

There are no opinion polls in New Caledonia and so there are no clear-cut frontrunners. But it appears the elections will be unusually hard-fought.

“We talk a lot about the elections at home,” says Audrey. “We are afraid of seeing Nicolas Metzdorf and [former MEP and anti-independence candidate] Maurice Ponga, who represent extremes to us.”