New Caledonia

New Caledonia's pro-independence parties have called on the French state to help the northern province with its Koniambo nickel plant.

The French government has decided to offer the Vale nickel plant in New Caledonia a $US220 million loan for ten years to prop up its production.

The French overseas minister will bring her New Caledonia trip planned for February forward to this year in light of concern over crime.

New Caledonian leaders and the French prime minister Manuel Valls have agreed to put in a maximum effort to make the territory's independence referendum incontestable.

New Caledonia's politicians have welcomed a French government commitment to help address youth crime in the territory.

New Caledonia's political leaders are due to meet the French prime minister Manuel Valls in Paris today to review the exit from the 1998 Noumea Accord.

A French presidential hopeful says he would propose compulsory military service in New Caledonia among measures aimed to curb crime in the territory.

The French interior minister has condemned last weekend's unrest in New Caledonia in which five policemen suffered injuries from gunfire.

Reports from New Caledonia say calm has returned to the stretch of road blocked for three days by armed unrest but that one vehicle was stoned overnight.

The family of a man killed in New Caledonia at the weekend at a police checkpoint has challenged prosecution claims the police were acting in self defence.

The main road in New Caledonia which had been blocked since the weekend's unrest has been reopened.

Efforts have resumed in New Caledonia to clear a main road south of Noumea blocked because of unrest since Saturday.

The situation has remained tense overnight in the outskirts of the New Caledonian capital Noumea after shootings at the weekend.

Police in New Caledonia have used armoured vehicles to clear the main road north of Noumea after burning cars blocked it for part of the night.

Six police officers in New Caledonia have been injured after being shot at by unidentified gunmen in clashes near Noumea.

Several thousand people have rallied in Noumea to call for New Caledonia's indigenous Kanaks to be automatically enrolled for the independence vote in 2018.

France has promised more funding for education in New Caledonia including money for the expansion of the University of New Caledonia.

A rally has been called by New Caledonia's indigenous Kanaks to denounce what they call electoral fraud committed by the French state.

A New Caledonian blog says it has won a defamation case brought against it by a former vice president Gilbert Tyuienon and a top official Jean-Raymond Postic.