The unrest comes as a constitutional reform is being debated in the national assembly in Paris. It aims to expand the electorate in the territory’s provincial elections.
France vowed in the Noumea Accord of 1998 to gradually give more political power to the Pacific island territory of nearly 300,000 people.
Under the agreement, New Caledonia has held three referendums over its ties with France, all rejecting independence.
The pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks rejected the result of the last referendum held in December 2021, which they boycotted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998 – meaning that island residents who have arrived from mainland France or elsewhere anytime in the past 25 years do not have the right to take part in provincial polls.
The French government has branded the exclusion of one out of five people from voting as “absurd”, while separatists fear that expanding voter lists would benefit pro-France politicians and “further minimise the Indigenous Kanak people”.
During a visit to the territory last year, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said he wanted a revised constitutional status for New Caledonia to be in place by the beginning of 2024.
Mr Macron has been seeking to reassert his country’s importance in the Pacific region, where China and the United States are vying for influence but France has territories such as New Caledonia and French Polynesia.