PARIS (Al Jazeera) — France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind protests and violence that have rocked its Pacific island territory of New Caledonia for the past few days over the French government’s decision to change a voting law.
Azerbaijan, which has traditionally had little presence in the Asia Pacific and is nearly 14,000km (8,700 miles) away from New Caledonia, has denied the allegations of interference.
But what’s behind their diplomatic spat and how does New Caledonia figure in it?
Mass protests erupted in New Caledonia on May 14 after the French parliament passed reforms that allow French people who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years or more to vote in local provincial elections in New Caledonia.
The French government has argued that these reforms uphold democracy in the archipelago. But local people — particularly those from the Indigenous Kanak communities, who make up 40 percent of the islands’ population — fear this will undermine their efforts to win independence from France.
New Caledonia, one of the largest French overseas territories, is located between Australia and Fiji. France occupied the territory in 1853 and purposefully populated it with French citizens who displaced the Indigenous Kanak communities.
