Vao church on fire by DR / RNZ
CV NEWS FEED // Two historic Catholic missions churches in the French Pacific New Caledonia burned down this week as a result of the ongoing pro-independence riots persisting throughout the colonized territory.
According to a local RNZ report, a 165-year-old Catholic missions church, along with its presbytery, and the residence of its Marist Sisters, burned down in Saint Louis near Nouméa on July 16, while another Catholic missions Church in the village of Vao burned down on July 18.
Civil unrest first broke out in New Caledonia in mid-May, after the French government proposed modification to the territory’s election laws that would modify eligibility rules for local elections. Riots have so far resulted in the deaths of eight civilians and two French gendarmes.
Members of the pro-independence movement reportedly perceived the changes as “a bid to dilute the political weight of indigenous Kanak voters.”
Shortly after, in early June, alarm spread across mainland France over the then-seemingly likely prospect of a far-right majority in the parliamentary snap elections.
In New Caledonia, as one popular socialist outlet put it, the further addition of the mainland snap elections “produced a surge in support for pro-independence candidates” to fight against Macron’s proposed legislative changes.
The protests have been largely kept ongoing by the younger generation of pro-independence Kanak natives; some of which RNZ reported, stated that they participated in the riots merely “for the sake of going crazy.”
“It’s not something that happened by accident,” the Archbishop of Nouméa, Most Reverend Michel-Marie-Bernard Calvet, stated in the RNZ report after the Saint Louis mission church burned down. “Those people wanted to destroy. They destroyed various missions buildings several days ago, they threatened the religious community, which was there, and which had to be evacuated.”
Hundreds of businesses and private residences have also burned down across the French territory, RNZ reported, with reparation costs estimated to be around 2.2 billion euros.
