‘Intolerable’: State of emergency in New Caledonia as unrest spreads

France has declared a state of emergency in its Pacific Islands territory of New Caledonia and deployed police and military reinforcements in an attempt to end days of unrest over Paris’s move to change the rules on provincial elections.

Three Indigenous Kanak people and a police officer have been killed in violence that erupted on Monday night and has continued despite an overnight curfew. Hundreds have been injured.

Anger has been simmering for weeks over plans to amend the French constitution to allow people who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years to vote in the territory’s provincial elections, diluting a 1998 accord that limited voting rights.

Many Indigenous Kanak people, who make up about 40 percent of the territory’s nearly 300,000 people, fear the move will undermine their position in the territory.

This week’s violence came as the National Assembly voted in Paris to adopt the measure. A joint sitting of the National Assembly and the Senate needs to be convened for the new rules to take effect because they represent a constitutional change.

New Caledonia, which lies some 1,500km (930 miles) east of Australia, was colonised by France in the 19th century.

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