Kanakay burns in anti-imperialist protests
Feature Image: Road block with a barricade, Noumea, Kanakay. Source: FT via EBU
On May 13, protests have burst in Kanakay, known by the name that French imperialism gave it, “New Caledonia.” The Pacific Ocean archipelago colonized by French imperialism has exploded in a great protest that has not been seen for more than 40 years. Fires, barricades, demonstrations, clashes with the police, looting … In just three days the violence in the streets is such that the French State has decreed the State of Emergency after Macron gathered the Defense and Security Council and has prohibited certain Social networks to prevent the conflict from sharing.
The outbreak occurs after the approval in the National Assembly of France of the law on Electoral Process of Kanakay. Currently, only natives and those residing since before 1998 can vote in the elections. With the new law, those who have been on the island for more than 10 years, that is, mostly French citizens can already vote. In Kanakay, 24% of the population is European and less than half, 41%, Kanaka. If this law will be applied, 25,000 European voters would be added to the voting, which could further favor policies in favor of French imperialism and the exploitation of the Kanaka people as another expression of the coloniality and semi-feudality that the country experiences.
Therefore, the imperialist State continues to use repression to try to suppress Kanakay’s just revolts. At the moment three dead are reported, between 17 and 36 years, in addition to two other gendarmes, one of them by friendly fire, hundreds of injured and more than 300 detainees. A thousand additional internal security forces have also been sent to be deployed in the country, in addition to the 1,700 troops that were already in the country, and the army to “protect” ports and airports after the establishing of the state of emergency.
Given the uncontrollable situation in the country, French imperialism continues to try to justify repression through its speech, trying to show a serious situation that justifies murders and repression in the name of the interests of French imperialism. This is part of the crisis French imperialism is in, as part of the general crisis of imperialism, and through it is shown that those above cannot rule and those below do not want to live as before. The High Commissioner of the Republic, Lous Le Franc, described the situation as “insurrectional” after seeing the high degree of violence of the masses and warned of the risk of “civil war”, as happened in the last violent uprisings of the archipelago. Since the 1980s French imperialism has not faced such a political crisis in the country, a situation to which it is being compared due to the number of young people between 15 and 25 years who participate in the protests.
