New Caledonia airport to resume some commercial flights

NOUMEA, France — Commercial flights to and from the main airport in New Caledonia will resume from Wednesday, an airline and the operator said, after weeks of stoppage following deadly rioting in the French Pacific territory."From tomorrow, Wednesday June 5, Aircalin will progressively resume a part of its long- and medium-haul commercial flights" from the Tontouta International Airport outside the capital Noumea, the local airline said on Tuesday.The New Caledonia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which manages the airport, confirmed the information.Aircalin said that it would be running "a reduced flight schedule until the situation returned to normal."It said a small plane would ferry passengers between Tontouta and the Magenta landing strip in Noumea, as there were still barricades along the road linking the two.Flights were halted in mid-May after unrest broke out in the overseas French territory over government plans for a new voting law.French authorities insist capital Noumea is back under their control, although barricades remain and pro-independence demonstrators are determined to stay in the streets.Authorities had on Tuesday opened an investigation into attempted murder after a police officer impaled his leg on a rebar spoke when he fell into an open manhole camouflaged with branches, a prosecutor said.The rebar had been placed at the bottom of the hole in the area of Dumbea outside the capital "to create spokes," Noumea prosecutor Yves Dupas said.New Caledonia has been ruled from Paris since the nineteenth century but many Indigenous Kanaks want fuller autonomy or independence.The government plans to open up the archipelago's electoral roll — frozen since 1998 — to more recent arrivals who have lived there for at least 10 years.Kanaks fear the change will crush their ambitions for independence by leaving them in a permanent minority in the territory of 270,000 people.Separatists in New Caledonia on Monday urged Paris to drop the planned voting reform.Anger last month over the plans spilled into two weeks of riots and the erection of barricades that cut off many neighborhoods and blocked major roads.Clashes cost the lives of seven people and left hundreds more injured, as well as causing around one billion euros ($1.1 billion) in damage.An overnight curfew is in force across New Caledonia until at least June 10.