Hundreds of heavily armed marines and police patrol the French capital, Noumea, after a night of violence.
Another person was killed in the French Pacific island territory of New Caledonia as security personnel tried to restore order, bringing to six the death toll from nearly a week of unrest and looting.
French security forces reported a sixth death on Saturday following armed clashes over France’s plan to impose new voting rules that could give tens of thousands of non-indigenous residents the right to vote.
The territory is “on a destructive path”, local minister Vaimu’a Muliava warned on Saturday, telling those involved “you are just punishing yourself”.
The person was killed in an exchange of fire at a barricade in Kaala-Gomen, in the north of the main island, a security official said, while two people were seriously injured.
Le Monde and other French media outlets said the person killed was a man and that his son was among those injured.
Two police officers were among those who died earlier this week in the unrest that prompted the Paris government to impose a state of emergency on the archipelago and rush reinforcements to the security services. Three other people – all indigenous Kanaks – were also killed.
Anger among the indigenous Kanak people has been simmering for weeks over plans to amend the French constitution to allow people who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years to vote in the territory’s provincial elections, diluting a 1998 agreement that limited voting rights.
Hundreds of heavily armed French marines and police on Saturday patrolled the capital, Noumea, where streets were littered with rubble.
Vehicles and buildings were burned in the city’s Magenta neighborhood, news agency AFP reported, while residents reported hearing gunshots, the drone of helicopters and “massive explosions” overnight.
The violence left around 3,200 tourists and other travelers stranded inside or outside the archipelago due to the closure of Noumea’s international airport.
French authorities accused a pro-independence group known as CCAT of being behind the protests. Ten activists accused of organizing the violence were placed under house arrest, according to authorities.
The CCAT called on Friday for “a moment of calm to break the spiral of violence”.
New Caledonia has been a French territory since colonization in the late 19th century. Centuries later, politics remains dominated by the debate over whether the islands should be part of France, autonomous or independent – with opinions divided roughly along ethnic lines.
France also accused the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan of interfering in the territory. Azerbaijan, which traditionally has little presence in the Asia-Pacific and is almost 14,000 km (8,700 miles) away from New Caledonia, has denied the allegations.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
