New Caledonia has been wracked by riots, with 200 arrests made and hundreds wounded.

France accused Azerbaijan on Thursday of meddling in riot-wracked New Caledonia, amid warnings Russia and China are seeking to exploit chaos in the French Pacific territory.

Five people have died, including two gendarmes, since riots erupted three days ago sparked by a French parliamentary bill. Pro-independence groups say a proposed new law would discriminate against the indigenous Kanak population of the island.

New Caledonia, located between Australia and Fiji, has the world’s second-largest nickel reserves – but its processing plants are on the verge of collapse, due to cheap competition from Indonesia and Chinese overproduction.

Prices have tumbled despite the metal being a key component of electric car batteries. This economic crisis has exacerbated tensions that have left the island “verging on civil war”, say analysts.

“It’s in [Beijing’s] interests to encourage pro-independence movements,” warned a recent report by the French military strategic research institute, Irsem, “to gain market share or weaken potential rivals.”

President Emmanuel Macron has called a state of emergency. On Thursday, Gabriel Attal, France’s prime minister, announced the dispatch of 1,000 police reinforcements – bringing the total to 2,700, along with soldiers and elite GIGN units – to try and quell the unrest.

“People have been ambushing law enforcement officers [with] sustained fire from hunting rifles,” said the New Caledonian high commission.

Hundreds of people, including 64 police, have been wounded and there have been 200 arrests. The territory’s population of around 270,000 is heavily armed, with more than 100,000 possessing firearms.

“We’re heading straight for civil war,” warned Louis Le Franc, the island’s high commissioner.

Describing the chaos, one French expatriate couple said neighbours had clubbed together to create a “citizens’ militia” and barricaded the entrance to the road. ”We’re afraid for our home and our lives,” said the pair, who live in the central district of Valléedes-Colons and declined to be named.

They added: “They’re burning down everything, even pharmacies, vets and petrol stations. There are neighbourhoods where the electricity is out, and they’ve cut off the water supply too.”

All commercial flights have stopped, effectively trapping terrified residents on the island.

French officials have long expressed concern about Azerbaijan’s curious interest in French overseas territories, including New Caledonia, located 9,000 miles away, and in their struggle against “colonial rule”.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, told France 2 TV when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged. Azerbaijan swiftly denied the allegations as “baseless”.

Relations between Paris and Baku nosedived in the wake of Azerbaijan’s 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a significant Armenian diaspora. Mr Darmanin said pro-Russia Azerbaijan was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, Paris also banned TikTok from operating in New Caledonia, on the grounds that the social network, whose parent company is Chinese, had been widely used by rioters. The ban is thought to the first in Europe.

Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would give outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say this would dilute the votes of Kanaks, who make up just 40 per cent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the MEP heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, said Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere... for months”.

While tensions over election reform were the main factor, he said that Azerbaijan, among others, was “seizing on internal problems”.

“Authoritarian regimes like Russia and Azerbaijan, but also China, seize on the slightest flaw in our societies to polarise public debate and sow chaos,” he said.

President Macron has cast France as a friendly “balancing power” between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific. “France is offering these Pacific territories true independence,” he said in a speech in Nouméa last July.

Clearing referring to China, he added: “Look at the countries that were independent, that went and signed huge contracts with the great powers, that offered huge investments.

“Look at how they find themselves saddled with debt, having lost their land, having lost their industrial sovereignty because these great powers took it from them. That’s the geopolitical reality of the region.”

However, various French experts said that foreign “interference” is less to blame for spiralling violence than the Macron government’s cack-handed treatment of New Caledonia’s peace process.

CNRS researcher Benoît Trépied said: “If the French State shot itself in the foot in New Caledonia, I’m not surprised that its political adversaries are taking advantage, but it wasn’t its adversaries who fired the shots.”

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New Caledonia: is Azerbaijan to blame for deadly riots in French overseas territory?

Infographic style illustration of a world map linking France, Azerbaijan and New Caledonia, with Emmanuel Macron,

A state of emergency has been declared in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia following three days of unrest that has left five people dead and dozens more injured.

The catalyst for the disorder is new legislation that would expand the eligible electorate – diluting the voting power of the indigenous Kanak people, the majority of whom favour independence from France. But French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin claimed the violence had been fomented by a nation 8,500 miles away from the archipelago.

"Some of the Caledonian independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan, that's undeniable," he told French television. A spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry rejected the "baseless accusations".

What did the commentors say?

France has been a historic ally of Azerbaijan's neighbour and rival, Armenia. Emmanuel Macron's vocal support for Armenia during the conflicts over the contested enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and 2023 precipitated a "rapid and overt diplomatic deterioration" in relations between Paris and Baku, said France 24.

Since then, Baku has openly courted pro-independence activists in France's sometimes restive overseas territories. The French government's anti-foreign interference unit, Viginum, also found evidence that an online smear campaign targeting the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics originated with "an actor close to Azerbaijan".

And in the wake of this week's riots, the French government has drawn attention to the "sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols", said The Guardian, and to "pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts" circulating an "edited montage" that appears to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

Azerbaijan's role in past "destabilisation" campaigns is undeniable, said Le Monde. Last year, pro-independence activists from several French overseas territories were invited to the Azerbaijani capital to form the "Baku Initiative Group Against French Colonialism". The group's president, Abbas Abbasov, has denied interference in New Caledonia, but during an earlier wave of protests in March, "T-shirts bearing his organisation's logo were worn by protesters on site".

Yet although there is "little doubt" that actors linked to Azerbaijan have stoked tensions in New Caledonia in recent months, "their impact and Baku's role in the violence of the last three days remain open to question".

Let's not forget that "major inequalities disadvantaging the Kanak people persist", the newspaper said in an editorial, as does economic uncertainty, a lack of opportunity for young people, and mistrust in the government's impartiality on the independence issue.

What's next?

Emmanuel Macron's short-term priority will be to restore order. An extra 1,000 personnel have been sent to the archipelago in addition to 1,700 already deployed, on top of existing measures including "a curfew and a ban on TikTok", said Sky News.

Macron may have "wanted to teach the rioters a lesson in toughness" by allowing Tuesday's vote on the controversial electoral reforms to go ahead, said Le Monde, but the passage of the bill is a "Pyrrhic victory", as "nothing will be possible without a broad agreement encompassing economic, social and institutional issues".

New Caledonia's next provincial elections, which must be held before December, will provide an opportunity to assess how the unrest has affected sentiment on the archipelago. At the last elections, in 2019, pro-independence candidates won 28 of the 54 parliamentary seats.

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France accuses Azerbaijan of meddling in New Caledonia with social media campaign

France accused Azerbaijan on Friday of fanning the flames of riots in the French-ruled Pacific island of New Caledonia by flooding social media with what it said were misleading photos and videos targeting French police.

Paris has cracked down on rioters who are angry over a contested electoral reform and is trying to restore order in the remote overseas territory after three nights of upheaval in which four people have been killed.

The French government's watchdog for online disinformation campaigns, Viginum, a unit created in response to Russian activity in Africa, published a report on Friday identifying Azeri social media accounts spreading anti-French propaganda.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin first levelled the charges against Azerbaijan on Thursday, without providing any evidence. Azerbaijan's foreign ministry swiftly denied what it called insulting allegations and reiterated on Friday it was not connected to the New Caledonia protests.

"Instead of accusing Azerbaijan of allegedly supporting pro-independence protests in New Caledonia, France should focus on his country’s failed policy towards the overseas territories that led to such protests. We once again call on France to stop baseless claims against our country," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajiyev.

Viginum said the campaign included a picture montage showing dead pro-independence protesters next to a white man in a khaki outfit with a rifle held in a shooting position, with the caption: "The French police are murderers".

Viginum said at least 86 posts on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, were published by profiles of people who list a connection to the Azeri ruling presidential party YAP. They used the hashtags #RecognizeNewCaledonia and #FrenchColonialism.

"On May 15 and 16, Viginum has detected on X and Facebook a massive and coordinated spread of content manifestly inaccurate and misleading accusing French police of killing pro-independence protesters in New Caledonia," the report said.

It published screenshots of the accounts and a minute-by-minute account of the posts.

Azerbaijan has reacted angrily to French military support for Armenia, another republic in the South Caucasus with which it has fought two wars in the past three decades.

Azerbaijan last year recaptured the Karabakh region, where ethnic Armenians had enjoyed de facto independence since the early 1990s.

France, which has a large ethnic Armenian community, has been sympathetic towards Armenia and provided military equipment. It asked Baku for clarification in November about a campaign that targeted the Olympic Games.

According to officials the campaign in New Caledonia has been in the works for several months and has even seen Azerbaijan organise anti-French networks on the ground, including through the financing of events.

"Azerbaijan is outsourcing its dispute (with France)," a French source with knowledge of the government's view told Reuters.

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