UN slams France for ‘repressive’ handling of New Caledonia

Last week, a team of experts at the United Nations issued a statement expressing concern over possible human rights abuses committed against the Kanak people under French administration in New Caledonia.

“We are very concerned by the absence of dialogue, the excessive use of force, the ongoing deployment of military forces and the continued reports of human rights violations that have targeted thousands of Kanak Indigenous People for taking part in protests since May 2024,” they said.

At the time, demonstrations had erupted in protest of a French parliamentary bill that would allow recent and temporary residents to vote in New Caledonia’s elections, which would undermine the vote of the Indigenous, largely pro-independence Kanak people. Presently, New Caledonia’s population is 41 percent Kanak, and 24 percent European.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, France has claimed possession of the tiny South Pacific Island, some 17,000km away from its mainland, initially with the purpose of turning it into a penal colony, and later as a territory with an abundance of natural wealth and flourishing nickel industry. Throughout, the French have brutally suppressed and punished Indigenous Kanak resistance and reclamation to their land. Till now, it controls New Caledonia’s foreign policy, military, economy and elections. Additionally, the Kanak people are not only underrepresented in politics, but have fewer economic and social opportunities and rights, as racial discrimination persists.

In the latest instance of mass civil unrest, France declared a state of emergency, and deployed hundreds of additional law enforcement personnel. French President Emmanuel Macron flew in to ease tensions by meeting elected officials. He referred to the protests as an “absolutely unprecedented insurrection movement,” glossing over the long history of colonial suppression and continual indigenous resistance on the tiny island.

At least six protesters were shot at, and 169 to 300 injured. Another 2,235 protesters were arrested and at least a dozen of them were deported to mainland France, including Kanak leader Christian Tein, from the pro-independence Field Action Coordination Unit party. Additionally, some 500 Kanak individuals went ‘missing’, in what human rights defenders fear to be a case of enforced disappearance by authorities.

Now the UN team has echoed Amnesty and others’ concerns about grave human rights violations.

“The lack of restraint in the use of force against the Kanak demonstrators, but above all the exclusively repressive and judicial handling of a conflict whose object is the claim by an Indigenous People to its right to self-determination, is not only anti-democratic, but deeply worrying for the rule of law,” they wrote.

“As mentioned in Resolution 2625 of the General Assembly, ‘States have a duty to refrain from acts of reprisal involving the use of force. Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to in the elaboration of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence’. “

They also noted the unfairness of the previous election in 2021, which the majority of the Kanak people did not participate in, as it interfered with their cultural mourning period during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “In all such processes, the basic rights to participation, consultation and free, prior and informed consent of the Kanak Indigenous People and customary institutions clearly have not been respected,” the UN team noted. “In addition, the attempt to dismantle the Noumea Accord, an Accord which brought back peace after years of bloody conflict during which more than 90 people died, undermines the integrity of the overall decolonization process.”

Only two weeks before the French Parliament debacle, the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations Alliance condemned French neo colonial policies and stressed the importance of sovereignty and self-determination for the Kanak people: “The evil of colonialism can continue unchecked in this manner, and in this 21st Century is not only an insult to the Pacific Region but to the international system,” the alliance said in April. The Pacific is not distracted by French false narratives. The Kanak, as people, are the rightful inhabitants of what is present day New Caledonia still under enduring French colonial rule. The Kanak people and New Caledonia’s destiny should not be decided in Europe, they are Pacific people who are rightfully asking for their freedom.”