According to the Noumea public prosecutor, gendarmes on leave returned fire on Monday after being attacked by ‘several armed individuals’

Two individuals who were part of a group that attacked gendarmes were shot and wounded by them on Monday in Païta, north of Nouméa, said Nouméa public prosecutor Yves Dupas. He added that an investigation into ‘attempted murder of a public official’ had been opened, entrusted to the Noumea Research Unit, and that the gendarmes who fired their weapons were also being questioned.

The incident occurred at 4.05pm local time (7.05am in Paris) in the Col de la Pirogue area of Païta, a strategic point on the road linking Nouméa to the international airport, which had previously been blocked by pro-independence forces. According to the prosecutor’s statement, the off-duty gendarmes were travelling in a hired vehicle when, ‘after passing through a roadblock’, their vehicle ‘was intentionally hit from behind by a pick-up truck’.

‘Several armed individuals opened fire on the vehicle, prompting two gendarmes to use their service weapons in self-defence’, the statement added. The prosecutor also said that one ‘assailant’ had been shot in the head and another in the arm, and that the vehicle that hit the gendarmes had fled and had not been found.

However, the Cellule de coordination des actions de terrain (CCAT) in Païta presented a different version of events in a press release, accusing ‘the militias’. According to this account, motorists took advantage of the clearing of the road by the forces of law and order to drive past ‘at high speed, opening fire with live ammunition on our young people positioned on the edge of the road’. The public prosecutor refuted this information in his own press release, stating that it did not correspond to the findings and initial investigations carried out.

Last Thursday, an individual had already been seriously injured by the GIGN during a shoot-out in Dumbéa, in the Greater Nouméa area. Since the unrest and rioting began in New Caledonia on 13 May, seven people have been killed, including two gendarmes.