During 2024, France embarked on a project to unilaterally reconstruct the electoral roll in Kanaky (New Caledonia) in favour of French colonial interests. The decision represented the most recent move in a long history of French efforts to undermine Kanaky’s Indigenous-led independence movement. When Indigenous Kanak resisted, the recruitment of colonial criminal law into the service of the French colonial state was both immediate and comprehensive. Characterising Kanak resistance as an unprecedented insurrection, France declared a state of emergency. Breaches of this French-declared state of emergency were punishable under French-administered criminal law and enforced by thousands of French-deployed law enforcement personnel. Drawing on recent scholarship and on eyewitness reports from Indigenous Kanak leaders, activists and advocates, this article focuses on the period between May and September 2024 to isolate and analyse how criminal law is being deployed by the French colonial state as a frontline mechanism to pursue Kanak erasure.

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