Brits told to avoid holiday hotspot as deadly protests close airport
France has banned TikTok, closed the airport to international flights and blamed Azerbaijan for an outbreak of violence amid protests.
British travellers have been warned not to visit New Caledonia amid protests that have grounded flights, left six people dead and seen TikTok blocked.
The Foreign Office issued new guidance advising ‘against all but essential travel’ to France’s Pacific islands.
It warned that ‘travel insurance could be invalidated’ if you choose to do so and urged any UK citizens let the Foreign Office know if they are there.
New Caledonia’s tourism board describes the archipelago, home to 270,000 people, as ‘picture-postcard perfect with their paradise beaches’.
The mayor of its capital, Nouméa, said the French overseas territory is ‘under siege’ after days of rioting over a change to voting laws.
Three indigenous Kanak people, aged 17 to 26, and two police officers have died during the unrest that’s seen 1,000 extra officers flown in.
A sixth person was killed when guns were fired at a makeshift roadblock on Saturday. Two others were injured in the shootout.
Video footage showed black smoke rising over Nouméa as looting and arson leaves burnt out cars in their wake.
Flights in and out of the New Caledonia have been suspended, and the airport is closed amid the state of emergency declared there.
Blockades have been erected on roads that French police are now trying to regain control of.
There have even been long queues outside supermarket as residents and tourists wait for an opportunity to buy food.
It is the worst outbreak of violence in New Caledonia since the 1980s, when French troops were sent in to crush an uprising of independence activists.
Nouméa mayor Sonia Lagarde said: ‘Can we say that we are in a besieged city? Yes, I think we can say that. It is desolation.’
Why are there riots in French New Caledonia?
Violence erupted after France’s national parliament approved a new law allowing more French residents to vote in local elections.
It gives French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for a decade or more the right to vote in elections for congress, which governs the autonomous region.
One of France’s overseas territories, this set of islands 10,500 miles away from France is home to the Kanak ethnic group, who form 40% of its population.
At least a quarter of people living there are of French heritage.
There are fears the change will dilute the political influence of the indigenous population of New Caledonia, which was colonised by France in the 1850s.
New Caledonia has long seen tensions between Kanak people, many of whom desire independence from France, and newer French arrivals attracted by the natural beauty of its mountains and beaches.
Historically, Kanaks were kept segregated on reservations and locked out of the archipelago’s economy, dependent on nickel mines accounting for 10% of the world’s supply.
Even today, Kanaks are less well off than the European inhabitants of these islands.
More than 71% were living below the poverty line in 2020, Le Monde reported.
Those tensions have risen with the risk of New Caledonia’s main nickel processing plants closing, potentially pushing the unemployment rate as high as 50%, Politico reported.
An imposition of a new voting law tipped that anger over the edge.
What does Azerbaijan have to do with the riots in New Caledonia?
It might seem strange for a small country of 10,000,000 people straddling the Caucasus Mountains separating Europe and Asia to have any influence on New Caledonia.
But thousands of kilometres of distance appears little obstacle to Azerbaijan, which the French government has blamed for stoking the unrest.
‘This isn’t a fantasy, it’s a reality’, Frances’ interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, told TV channel France 2, describing Azerbaijan as a ‘dictatorship’.
He said: ‘I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable.’
A spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry rejected the ‘baseless accusations’, calling it ‘a campaign of slander’.
They said: ‘We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.’
But Azerbaijani flags have appeared on the t-shirts of Kanak independence supporters during the protests.
Azerbaijan has previously invited Kanak separatists, along with independence campaigners from other French territories, to its capital Baku.
That led to the creation of a ‘Baku Initiative Group’ campaigning for the liberation of these territories from France, The Guardian reported.
It said: ‘We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle.’
France and Azerbaijan have found themselves locking horns in recent years over the latter’s military campaign to gain control of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh from neighbouring Armenia.
That conflict saw Azerbaijan ethnically cleanse more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians, some 99% of its population, from Nagorno-Kharabakh last year.
France has been a longtime ally of Armenia and is home to roughly 650,000 Armenians.
Its support for Armenia was cited in Azerbaijan’s rebuttal of accusations of interference, Euronews reported.
An Azerbaijani spokesperson said: ‘We once again strongly condemn the French side’s insulting expressions against Azerbaijan and urge to stop the smear campaign against Azerbaijan with unacceptable accusations, such as the massacre of Armenians.
‘It would be more appropriate if the French Minister of the Interior recalled the history of his country committing crimes against humanity toward local peoples and the brutal murder of millions of innocent people as part of its colonial policy implemented for many years.’
Why has TikTok been blocked in New Caledonia?
The French government banned TikTok from operating in New Caledonia last week.
Protesters had been making extensive use of the social network, prompting the government to crack down on this means of communicating and organising protests.
TikTok’s Chinese ownership has also sparked fears that disinformation is being spread by foreign powers.
It has long been accused of being a vehicle for misinformation and poltiical influence.
The United States is currently considered an outright ban, and some European countries have banned public officials from using it for national security reasons, France24 reported.
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