Police in New Caledonia yesterday arrested protest leader Christian Tein at the headquarters of the biggest pro-independence political party, the Caledonian Union, as he prepared to hold a news conference, the party said in a statement.
Local media reported the arrest of eight people, including Tein, in a police operation yesterday morning that caused many businesses, shops and Noumea town hall to close out of concern of further unrest.
Nine people died, including two police officers, in protests that swept New Caledonia last month after France voted to approve reforms to allow thousands more French residents who have lived in the French Pacific territory for 10 years to vote.
Photo: AFP
Indigenous Kanaks fear that the change would dilute their vote and make it harder for a referendum on independence to pass, while Paris says the measure is needed to improve democracy.
Tein leads a branch of the Caledonian Union called the Field Action Coordination Cell, which organized protest barricades across the capital, Noumea, that have disrupted traffic, movement and food supplies.
He was among the political figures who met with French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to New Caledonia last month.
Caledonian Union president Daniel Goa in a statement urged calm among protesters and told young people not to respond to what he said was a “provocation.”
The French High Commission said in a statement that the city center was “free and secure,” as media reported many vehicles leaving.
The New Caledonia prosecutors’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Macron last week said that he had suspended the voting reform, but pro-independence groups want it completely withdrawn before dialogue over the political future of the island can restart, saying they cannot otherwise persuade young protesters to leave the barricades.
New Caledonia’s international airport reopened this week, although a curfew is still in place and several thousand French police reinforcements remain.
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