France Reacts: Troops Deployed, TikTok Banned
France deployed troops to New Caledonia's ports and international airport, banned TikTok and imposed a state of emergency after three nights of clashes that have left four dead and hundreds wounded.
Pro-independence, largely Indigenous protests against a French plan to impose new voting rules on its Pacific archipelago have spiraled into the deadliest violence since the 1980s, with a police officer among several killed by gunfire.
On major thoroughfares, the torched detritus amassed over four days of unrest was scattered amid fist-size hunks of rock and cement that appeared to have been flung during riots.
Armored vehicles roved the city's palm-lined boulevards, usually thronged with tourists.
Fearful locals set up make-shift roadblocks -- piling wooden pallets, wheelbarrows, bed frames, plastic jerricans, tree fronds and scraps of fencing across the streets.
As part of a sweeping French response, security forces placed five suspected ringleaders under house arrest, according to a statement by the high commission, which represents the French state in New Caledonia.
House searches will be carried out "in the coming hours", it said.
More than 200 "rioters" have been arrested since the clashes broke out, the high commission said.
Hundreds of people, including 64 police, have been wounded, officials said.
French authorities reported a third night of "clashes", though correspondents in the streets of the capital Noumea said it appeared calmer than previous nights.
White residents in some neighborhoods sat on garden chairs, manned barricades and strung up improvised white flags, a symbol of their intention to keep peaceful watch over the streets.
France is establishing an "air bridge", the high commission said, to rapidly move in troop and police reinforcements but also to bring in essential supplies for the population.
In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron offered to hold talks with New Caledonian lawmakers and called for a resumption of political dialogue.
