“There are supply problems that we are going to resolve: a supply maneuver will be put in place”: the authorities of New Caledonia announced several measures this Friday, May 17 to overcome the difficulties of access to food and care, in particular by freeing the main roads for a “resupply” operation, after four days of riots on the archipelago. “We will have to do a huge amount of work to restore the functioning of the society of Greater Nouméa, which has been severely impacted by everything that has been looted and destroyed,” the state representative in this South Pacific territory warned on Friday. , Louis Le Franc.
The High Commissioner of the Republic has currently retained two “priorities”: food and health. For supplies, the High Commissioner is counting on internal security reinforcements who arrived during the night from Thursday to Friday, representing nearly a thousand personnel. They must make it possible to clear the roads “that we need to use so that convoys of food resupply, resupply of medicines, can head towards the structures where it is necessary, towards the commercial areas”. The police must also “liberate all these roadblocks” which are still blocking the city, according to him.
LIVE – New Caledonia: situation more peaceful but certain neighborhoods “out of control”, recognizes the State
In a press release released on Friday, the government of New Caledonia estimated that “there is no food shortage” in the territory, for the moment. The government says it has “identified a sufficient two-month stock”. “There are two boats with more than a hundred containers which are stuffed with foodstuffs” off the coast of New Caledonia, continued Louis Le Franc, for whom the urgency is to “unblock the dams”.
In terms of health, an advanced medical post has also been set up to allow “initial treatment” when necessary, the New Caledonian government announced.
Since Monday, New Caledonia has been gripped by a wave of violence linked to the revolt against an electoral reform voted in Paris. The voted text aims to expand the electorate in provincial elections. Supporters of independence believe that this modification risks reducing their electoral weight and marginalizing “even more the indigenous Kanak people”. Five people have died since this uprising: two men aged 20 and 36, a 17-year-old girl and two gendarmes.