New Caledonia's civil unrest has unfolded rapidly, but some say the French territory's strife was years in the making

David Guyenne is counting the cost of damage from the civil unrest that plunged New Caledonia into its worst violence in 40 years.

His shopping centre, Les 2 Baies, was burnt during the turmoil this week — one of many businesses damaged as tensions erupted into violence over several nights in the French territory.

"It's a frenzy of destruction, the anarchy is just beyond belief … it was very shocking for me," he said.

Three nights of violent clashes left five dead, hundreds of people wounded, and businesses and public infrastructure damaged across the capital Nouméa.

France announced a state of emergency and said 1,000 extra security personnel would arrive in New Caledonia by Friday night local time.

Areas of the Pacific territory have "escaped" state control, a French government representative said on Friday.

To Mr Guyenne, also president of the territory’s chamber of commerce and industry, the outbreak of unrest was unexpected.

For others, this week's events were not as surprising, after discord built amid a prolonged stalemate over the future of New Caledonia's status as a French territory.

Nicole George, a University of Queensland associate professor now stranded in Nouméa, said local women told her social and economic inequalities were also at the root of the unrest.

"It's been bubbling there for a long time," she said.

Other experts and observers say the crisis has been brewing since a boycotted referendum on independence from France in 2021, and a massive "no" result that was rejected by the pro-independence movement.

And while some struggle to see an immediate way out of the crisis after the violence of the past week, the region is closely watching how France and its President Emmanuel Macron will act next.

An unresolved dispute

New Caledonia, a territory of about 270,000 people located between Australia and Fiji, held the last of its three referendums on independence in late 2021.

The archipelago is one of two French territories in the Pacific on a United Nations list of "territories whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government".

Divisions over independence have spilled into violence in the past.

[Map]

An agreement in 1998, the Nouméa Accord, helped end one of its darkest chapters and allowed three referendums on independence.

A majority voted to remain part of France in the first two in 2018 and 2020, but the gap between the "yes" and "no" vote narrowed.

The final referendum coincided with a wave of the Delta variant of COVID that devastated the indigenous Kanak community, and pro-independence campaigners called for a delay in the vote to let it observe traditional mourning customs.

When France refused, supporters of independence boycotted. Those who voted emphatically rejected independence by 96.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

While pro-independence supporters called the vote illegitimate, anti-independence camps and France said the three referendums were legal under French law.

The parties have since been unable to agree on a path forward and France has moved to unfreeze electoral rolls, previously restricted to people who had lived in New Caledonia before 1998, and their children.

University of Melbourne professor Simon Batterbury and Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences professor Matthias Kowasch, both experts in New Caledonia politics, said the proposed changes left pro–independence supporters feeling betrayed.

The reform, which has passed both France's Senate and National Assembly but requires one more sitting in June to pass, would add an estimated 24,000 new voters to the electoral roll.

"It was a highly politicised gesture and some reaction to it was almost inevitable. Pro-France loyalist parties were happy," Professors Batterbury and Kowasch said in a joint statement to the ABC.

They said the changes would swell the future vote in favour of remaining with France.

"It is quite likely that in this settler economy with a declining European origin population and greater number of indigenous residents — at least 42 per cent Kanak at present — a vote for independence could actually have been successful, now or in the near future," they said.

A 'backfired tactic'

The change being debated in Paris would scupper such hopes for independence, Professors Batterbury and Kowasch said.

"It would frustrate the success of any future referendum on independence of New Caledonia from France," they said.

"Many Kanak view this as a continuation of settler colonialism."

The French government has said the change in voting rules was needed so elections would be democratic.

Former Australian consul-general in Nouméa, Denise Fisher, said the impasse is not only political but cultural.

"The Kanak leaders felt that their culture was not being recognised, they were not being respected or listened to," she said.

Ms Fisher believes Mr Macron had tried using the vote on unfreezing the electoral roll as a tactic to hurry pro-independence and anti-independence sides back to discussions on a new accord.

With France's National Congress debating the proposed changes on Monday, New Caledonia's pro-independence parties in the local Congress called for them to be withdrawn.

On the streets of Nouméa, protesters voiced their opposition to the reform and tensions erupted.

Ms Fisher believes Mr Macron's evident plan to bring parties back to discussions has backfired.

Another divide

Some view growing inequality in New Caledonia as a deeper force driving the unrest.

The territory's crucial nickel mining economy has experienced a downturn that has rippled into higher unemployment, Professors Batterbury and Kowasch said.

A major nickel operation, the majority Kanak-controlled Koniambo Nickel SAS (KNS), lost its partner Glencore in February.

"In addition to political dissatisfaction, people are concerned that secure employment from this mine, and elsewhere, will suffer," Professors Batterbury and Kowasch said.

"Especially some Kanak youth are feeling left behind, while some Kanak political leaders are engaged in nickel mining and/or administration activities."

Dr George said disparity in wealth was visible in New Caledonia.

"This is a small population, in a relatively small place. People can see how other people are living," she said.

"I'm not saying that to excuse the violence, but it's just a sense of frustration, I think, from a young population that feels quite alienated.

"The political conflict over the changes to the electoral roll was something that kind of ripped open a seam in the society and then this has just blown through that hole."

Mr Guyenne said many of the rioters were young people, and he believes they are being used by some political sides for their own agenda.

"You actually see that the problem is not so much a political agenda, but a social agenda. How do you make sure that New Caledonian society and economy is more inclusive? How do you make sure that these youngsters, we are able to catch them back and bring them back into society?" he said.

"That's a big lesson for New Caledonia. Stop thinking of the future just in terms of institutional political matters.

"Because this is not the core of the New Caledonian problem. We have to build an economic and societal model that will accommodate everyone."

High stakes in the Pacific

Neighbouring countries — including Australia — are watching closely as violence unfolds in New Caledonia.

Anthony Albanese this week said the government was monitoring the situation — a rare public comment on the French territory from an Australian prime minister.

New Zealand's foreign minister Winston Peters, who cancelled a trip to New Caledonia due to the unrest, called for all sides to de-escalate tensions and hold "constructive dialogue".

And Pacific Islands Forum chair and Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown said the forum was ready to facilitate a "supported and neutral space" for discussions, "to find an agreed way forward that safeguards the interests of the people of New Caledonia".

A group of Melanesian countries that counts the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) as a member, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, was strident in its criticism of France’s part in the crisis.

"These events could have been avoided if the French government had listened and not proceeded to press forward with the Constitutional Bill aimed at unfreezing the electoral roll," MSG chairman and Vanuatu prime minister Charlot Salwai said.

He said France urgently needed to agree to a proposal by the FLNKS to a dialogue and mediation mission led by a mutually-agreed mediator, to "discuss a way forward so that normalcy can be restored quickly and an enduring peace can prevail in New Caledonia".

Ms Fisher said another referendum was likely to remain a demand from the pro-independence side in any future discussions.

It might be prepared to accept some broadening of the electorate, she said.

"But they want it to be in the context of the whole picture — all the compromises that both sides are going to have to make on a number of issues, not just on its own, and certainly not dictated by parliamentarians in Paris.

"They feel the discussions must be in New Caledonia."

Ms Fisher said after years working to build relationships in the Pacific region, much was on the line for France.

"How France manages this is not just a critical issue for New Caledonia at the moment, no doubt, but also for how [France] is viewed and accepted for its first role in the Pacific region."