The French prosecutor for New Caledonia says a police officer has been taken into custody after shooting and killing a man when the officer was set upon by a group of about 15 people.
Yves Dupas says the officer is believed to have fired one shot, killing a 48-year-old man on Friday afternoon. It’s the seventh shooting death reported since unrest erupted May 13 on the archipelago over contested voted reforms.
It comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron made an emergency round-trip from Paris to de-escalate the violence in New Caledonia, where Indigenous Kanak people have long sought independence from France.
A written statement from the prosecutor did not specify whether the officer is a man or a woman. It said the officer and a colleague were driving in an area north of the capital, Nouméa, on Friday afternoon — just hours after Macron took off on his return to Paris — when they “were physically attacked by a group of around 15 individuals.”
“The official allegedly used their service weapon by firing a shot to extract themselves from this physical altercation. A 48-year-old man was fatally shot,” the statement said.
It said the officers' faces showed traces of having received blows.
The prosecutor said he has opened a voluntary homicide investigation into the shooting — customary for French officers in such cases — and the officer is in custody for questioning.
