follow the festivities and the parade on Avenue Foch in Paris

The official July 14 parade was cancelled in Noumea due to the violence still rocking the archipelago, but loyalists and independentists each raised their colours on Sunday.

In the absence of a military parade, dozens of Caledonians, at the call of the parties Les Loyalists Le Rassemblement-Les Républicains, organized a procession of vehicles decked out in the tricolor colors in the streets of Noumea on Sunday morning. A way of “showing our support for the police and our love of France,” according to Clément, one of the participants.

In the afternoon, it was the separatists who marched, holding green, red, blue and yellow flags with the spire on top in hand, in several districts of the capital. No major incidents were reported.

A wreath laying ceremony was held at the War Memorial on Place Bir Hakeim, in place of the usual military parade held each year in the capital. “The police and gendarmes are on the ground, it was not appropriate in these conditions to mobilize them in a military parade,” said the High Commissioner of the Republic, Louis Le Franc.