TRANSCRIPT
After the eruption of protests which killed nine people, French auhtorities are slowly regaining control in New Caledonia.
Gendarmes in heavily armoured vehicles push through barricades around the capital, Noumea... while excavators pick up the shells of burnt-out vehicles, dropping them into the backs of pickup trucks.
But the arrest of eight independence leaders in the capital sparked further unrest in the neighbourhood of Magenta.
Jimmy Naouna is part of the pro-independence coalition known as the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front or FLNKS.
He fears those arrests could lead younger activisits and protesters to more violence.
"That could be the fear, that most of these youth are not members of any specific political party so they are operating out of these political groups. So tensions and the violence can come from those youth, but there's been a call for calm after the arrests and so I hope the youth groups will listen to the call and just remain calm until the investigations are completed here."
Despite hundreds of Australians being evacuated from New Caledonia in the wake of the violence, dual-citizen Tiffany Bourseguin has remained in the capital.
She's told SBS that after 35 years living in the territory, she's decided she can no longer stay.
"It's a sad thought for me, and such a disappointment to think that one day I will be leaving here. As you say I've been here such a long time, over 35 years, built a life, built a work relationship, had my daughter, married, divorced, the whole thing, but it's a chapter that is unfortunately coming to an end I feel."
A voting bill introduced in Paris, aimed at expanding voting rights in the territory, was widely seen as the cause of the violence back in May.
But Benoit Trepied, an anthropologist with the French National Centre for Scientific Research, says the problem was far deeper.
"I think nobody predicted that the riots and unrest could be so huge and that you had several hundred enterprises that were burned, and several hundreds of houses that were burned. Nobody thought it could go that far. If it did, it's because the political issue of the electoral law was articulated with the social tensions and social issues. And what's really important is it's only in Noumea because Noumea was the real place where the inequality and racism and discrimination were the most deep but also the most visible because it's in the same city that you see that."
When President Emmanuel Macron decided to dissolve France's National Assembly and hold legislatve elections at the end of the month, the union of pro-independence parties known as the FLNKS, called an extraordinary congress in the territory's northern province.
Insiders say disagreements over who could attend, meant the meeting was postponed until after election.
Speaking to SBS from New York, the territory's Minister for External Affairs, Mickael Forrest says the special congress will reconvene in July.
"Because you know we are Melanesian people. Sometimes Melanesian people take some time to discuss and consult all parts, in the church, in civic society, in youth groups, to continue to progress more work through the objective of the self-determination of New Caledonia."
But anthropologist Benoit Trepied says the significance of that meeting being postponed until after the legislative election, cannot be understated.
"It is a sign of this huge political tensions within the Kanak and pro-independence movement, not only between the parties, but also and mainly, between generations, and between those young Kanak activists who are on the barricades, but they are very, very independent."
Mr Trepied says a new generation of Kanaks is pushing for independence, now openly challenging the established parties.
Most agree the issue can't be solved militarily.
For now, it's an uneasy wait for the election, to see how talks between the independence movement and French state can resume.
