Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP
A recent ruling by a French court to drop all charges against pro-independence Kanak leader Christian Téin and 13 others in their alleged role in the May 2024 civil unrest in New Caledonia has triggered a barrage of emotional reactions from across the French Pacific territory’s political chessboard.
Last week, a court in Paris said they had based their decision on “insufficient” evidence – amounting to a “no case to answer” – for all of the 14 accused.
The Public Prosecution has since appealed the decision, saying “further investigation” was still required.
But on the local scene, the highly-sensitive case remains a tense and polarising subject, as New Caledonia’s electoral campaigning for the local provincial elections is now in full swing, two years after violent political unrest took place, causing 14 deaths and over €2 billion in economic damage, mainly caused by arson and looting.
Pro-independence FLNKS party (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), one of the main components of the pro-independence movement, is now headed by Téin.
Briefly reacting to the Paris ruling, FLNKS said it was “relieved” that “French justice has done its job” and welcomed the decision”with a lot of humility”.
Defence lawyers had earlier pointed to a case that initially had attempted to “muzzle” Téin and his co-accused.
But reactions from political groups that want New Caledonia to remain part of France have denounced what they term a “biased” decision.
New Caledonia’s pro-France MP in the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, lashed out on social network at what he calls “the red judges”.
“As long as justice is not delivered, nothing can be totally repaired in New Caledonia. A whole people was harmed and those responsible must be taken to account”, he said, while welcoming the appeal lodged by Public Prosecution.
Another prominent pro-France figure in the local political spectrum, Southern Province President Sonia Backès, also criticised a French judicial system that, she said, “has gone crazy”.
But one of Téin’s lawyers, François Roux, reminded that “investigating judges are independent … they have done a thorough job”.
The ruling came after almost two years of investigation on this case, which followed the grave civil unrest that broke out in New Caledonia mid-May 2024.
At the time, Téin was the leader of a group called CCAT (Field Action Coordinating Cell) which was set up by pro-independence party Union Calédonienne a few months earlier.
Public prosecutors had alleged at one stage that CCAT was an “organised structure” and that its “order givers” had carried out a plan to “destabilise (New Caledonia’s) economic, administrative and public State services”.
In June 2024, Téin and other CCAT leaders were arrested in Nouméa and flown to mainland France, where they served pre-trial jail terms of up to one year.
Téin was allowed to return to New Caledonia in December 2025.
