The emergency measure was taken on Wednesday night after four people, including one police officer, died and hundreds of others injured despite the extra police deployment and the imposition of a curfew in the archipelago, IRNA cited a report from the daily, Financial Times.
President Emmanuel Macron condemned “the unacceptable violence by the rebels” in New Caledonia and demanded the resumption of negotiations for a political solution to the crisis there, the report said.
Also, the French presidential office warned, in a statement, that the continuation of violence will be dealt with decisively.
Local authorities in New Caledonia said shops were looted and government buildings set on fire during riots which continued for a third night despite the declaration of 12-day emergency.
French TV showed stores and cars were looted and burned, and citizens, some of them armed with rifles and machetes, clashing with police. Plumes of smoke could also be seen rising over New Caledonia's capital of Noumea.
The unrest began when the government pushed ahead with the electoral reform and got it through the lower house of parliament on Monday after several years of failed negotiations with New Caledonia’s pro- and anti-independence camps.
The native people and pro-Independence groups are against a change to France's Constitution that would give voting rights to an increasing number of non-Indigenous residents of the archipelago.
New Caledonia, comprising dozens of islands in the South Pacific, is located between Australia and Fiji, and is a French overseas territory since 1853.
New Caledonia's request for independence has failed in the last three referendums but it still enjoys significant support, especially among the indigenous population.
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