French claws in the Pacific

Kiwi holiday makers have been air-lifted from New Caledonia, but what kind of mess have they left behind?France's fight to remain relevant in the Pacific is clashing with the desire of indigenous Kanaks to assert their independence - with flammable resultsFrench president Emmanuel Macron's priority on his rush visit to New Caledonia is to quell the unrest tearing at the territory for nearly two weeks.To that end he's announced today he will delay the voting reform that's been the spark for violence.Macron says his ultimate aim still was to sign the measure into law but only if peace returns.A Pacific leader here says France is in the Pacific for the long haul, while the indigenous Kanaks have been fighting for independence for decades and won't give up."To me Kanak independence is inevitable," says Sir Collin Tukuitonga, who lived and worked there for several years. "I think France is prolonging the inevitable." Unrest flared up last week after Paris-backed electoral reforms that would give voting rights to about 25,000 non-indigenous New Caledonia residents.He says it is the worst conflict in the archipelago since the 1980s but there has been ongoing simmering tension between the pro-liberation movement and pro-France residents.The unrest flared up last week after Paris backed electoral reforms that would give provincial election voting rights to about 25,000 non-indigenous residents. Voters in France support the move while the Kanaks see it as a dilution of their vote, a threat to their move towards independence; a recolonisation.Sir Collin, who headed the Pacific Community international development organisation in Noumea until 2019, says the angry response of pro-independence activists should not have surprised France."I was just amazed at how the French had provoked it," he says.The electoral reform follows three referenda on independence in recent years, the first two of which the Kanaks narrowly failed to get independence, while the third was boycotted by indigenous voters because it was held during the pandemic. France went ahead against their wishes."This latest move was really a precipitant, the French really ought to have seen it coming. When you try to add however many more votes of non-Kanaky, this was bound to happen, this was France's idea of trying to dilute the Kanaky vote to have more non-Kanaky voters on the list." Sir Collin Tukuitonga thinks the French president Emmanuel Macron should've expected these riots after the government's latest move…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details