Lizzie Carboni knew that life in New Caledonia had changed forever when the school she had attended as a child went up in flames on Wednesday night.
“I could hear people yelling, screaming and grenades being fired,” she says, adding that it was “the worst night of my life” and likening the scenes unfolding in the capital, Nouméa, to “civil war”.
Carboni lives in the residential neighbourhood of Portes de Fer and has watched as waves of violence have gripped the country this week, and protests over changes to a voting law grew into riots.
Now, armoured vehicles patrol the streets of the city, and locals describe being afraid to leave their homes.
Burnt detritus amassed over four days of unrest is scattered on Nouméa’s palm-lined major thoroughfares, which are usually thronged with tourists. Fist-size chunks of rock and cement that appeared to have been flung during riots lie on the ground.
In the wake of the violence, Paris has deployed troops to the French territory’s ports and international airport, banned TikTok and imposed a state of emergency. Four people, including a police officer, have died in the clashes and hundreds have been wounded.
Carboni, a freelance journalist, is horrified.
“We have bags ready if we need to leave our home for whatever reason,” she says, adding that local supermarkets had been looted and that she and her family were relying on the food they had remaining in their pantry. “We were, and are still, terrified by what’s happening.
“Life will never be the same from now on. It will take months and months to rebuild everything, if it can be done at all,” she says.
Speaking to broadcaster France Info on Wednesday, Anne Clément, another Nouméa resident, hailed security forces reinforcements, saying the unrest had morphed into “a real urban guerrilla war”.
People have been confined to their homes, terrified by “shooting from all sides”, Clément, a nursery director, told the broadcaster. “We’ve stopped eating, we’ve stopped living, we’ve stopped sleeping,” she added. “I don’t see how we could get out of the situation without the state of emergency.”
Another resident, Yoan Fleurot, told Reuters in a Zoom interview that he was staying at home out of respect for the nightly curfew and was very scared for his family.
“I don’t see how my country can recover after this”, Fleurot said.
Residents in some neighbourhoods strung up improvised white flags, a symbol of their intention to keep peaceful watch over the streets.
French broadcaster La Première posted footage on Twitter showing a supermarket in the town of Dumbéa, next to the capital, which it said had been looted on Wednesday night. Elsewhere, residents formed queues outside petrol stations and supermarkets in a bid to find supplies.
Le carrefour Kenu-in à Dumbéa s'est fait totalement piller dans la nuit de mercredi à jeuid pic.twitter.com/UHIjW3Wn6b
— NC La 1ère (@ncla1ere) May 16, 2024
One woman said she felt she had been forced to take food from shops. “We just grabbed what there was in the shops to eat. Soon there will be no more shops,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We need milk for the children. I don’t see it as looting,” she told AFP.
The pro-independence, largely Indigenous protests were sparked by planned changes to voting laws that will allow more long-term French residents of the islands to vote in local elections. The move has sparked fears among the indigenous Kanak population that their influence will be further diluted.
The protests turned violent this week as the bill was voted on in the French parliament. The reforms must still be approved by a joint sitting of both houses of the French parliament.
“A few days ago, we were going out, sitting at cafes, laughing together but in just a few hours, everything changed,” Carboni says.
“The future is uncertain for everybody. What will tomorrow be like?”
