
Police in the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia rounded up eight people Wednesday, including an independence leader, who are suspected of having a role in the deadly violence that wracked the archipelago where Indigenous Kanak people have long sought to break free from France.
The early morning round-up was part of an ongoing police investigation launched May 17, just days after unrest first erupted, into a wave of armed clashes, looting, blazes and other violence that turned parts of the capital, Nouméa, and its suburbs into no-go zones.