French President Emmanuel Macron said on a visit to riot-hit New Caledonia on Thursday that he won’t force through a contested voting reform that has sparked deadly unrest in the French Pacific territory and wants to leave time for local leaders to come up with an alternate agreement for the archipelago’s future.
Speaking after a day of meetings with leaders on both sides of New Caledonia’s bitter divide between Indigenous Kanaks who want independence and pro-Paris leaders who do not, Macron laid out a roadmap that he said could lead to another referendum on the archipelago.
