PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron is making a surprise trip to riot-hit New Caledonia, the French Pacific territory that has been gripped by days of deadly unrest and where indigenous people have long sought independence.
“He will go there tonight,” government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot said after a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday where the president said he’d decided to make the more than 33,000-kilometer (20,000-mile) round trip himself to the archipelago east of Australia.
Six people have been killed, including two gendarmes, and hundreds of others injured in New Caledonia amid armed clashes, looting and arson, raising new questions about Macron’s handling of France’s colonial legacy.
There have been decades of tensions between indigenous Kanaks who seek independence for the archipelago of 270,000 people, and descendants of colonizers and colonists who want to remain part of France.
Norwegian Cruise Line, Wix.com rise; Cushman & Wakefield, Target fall, Monday, 5/20/2024
Former Labour minister Frank Field dies from cancer aged 81: Tributes pour in for 'formidable' ex
Former Labour minister Frank Field dies from cancer aged 81: Tributes pour in for 'formidable' ex
Should you claim child benefit? What it's worth
Poland's prosecutor general says previous government used spyware against hundreds of people
For them the war really is over! WW2 prisoner
Four people in hospital after Household Cavalry horses' six
Revealed: Brit tourist, 19, subjected to sex attack in Majorca 'was gang
A portrait by Gustav Klimt has been sold for $32 million at an auction in Vienna
Student fatally shot, suspect detained at Georgia's Kennesaw State University
The WNBA's Dallas Wings are planning a move downtown from the suburbs in two years