Case dismissed for pro-independence Kanak leader Christian Téin

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Christian Téin was allowed to return to New Caledonia in December 2025.

Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS

A Court in Paris has dropped all charges against pro-independence Kanak leader Christian Téin and 13 others in their alleged role in the May 2024 civil unrest in New Caledonia.

In announcing their ruling on Friday in Paris to French national media, the panel of judges said they had based their decision on "insufficient" evidence (amounting to a "no case to answer") for all of the 14 accused.

The ruling came after almost two years of investigation on this case, which followed the grave civil unrest that broke out in New Caledonia mid-May 2024.

At the time, Téin was the leader of a group called CCAT (Field Action Coordinating Group) which was set up by pro-independence party Union Calédonienne a few months earlier.

Public prosecutors had alleged at one stage that CCAT was an "organised structure" and that its "order givers" had carried out a plan to "destabilise (New Caledonia's) economic, administrative and public State services."

Following the latest ruling, Public Prosecution has ten days to lodge an appeal.

In June 2024, Téin and other CCAT leaders were arrested in Nouméa and flown to mainland France, where they served pre-trial jail terms of up to one year.

Téin was allowed to return to New Caledonia in December 2025.

In August 2024, while he was still jailed in Mulhouse (mainland France), he was elected, in absentia, President of New Caledonia's FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).

The case, meanwhile, continued to be investigated, based on crime-related allegations ranging from being accomplice to murder attempt, destruction of goods and property, armed theft for cases alleged to have been committed in June 2024.

What was at the beginning a series of peaceful protests to oppose attempted changes to voter eligibility rules at local provincial elections later degenerated into riots and violent unrest, mainly in the capital Nouméa and its surroundings.

The 2024 marches were to protest against a plan from the French government of the time to modify the French Constitution and "unfreeze" the restrictions on the list of eligible voters at local provincial elections.

The indigenous pro-independence movement claimed these changes would effectively "dilute" the Kanak indigenous vote and gradually bring it closer to a minority.

As a result of the 2024 riots, 14 people died, several hundred businesses were targeted, looted and severely damaged or destroyed, several thousands of jobs were lost, New Caledonia's GDP dropped by some 13.5 percent and the overall estimated material damage was about €2.2 billion.

However, following yet another Paris Court ruling, the case took a significant turn when, in January 2025, the case was transferred from a panel of judges in Nouméa (New Caledonia) to a new group of magistrates based in Paris.

Reacting to the ruling on Friday, defence lawyers hailed "the considerable work from the Parisian investigating judges."

"This is obviously a great satisfaction," said the defence lawyers, while at the same time regretting that the initial procedure against Téin "was aimed at gagging a politician."

One of Téin's lawyers, Florian Medico, said earlier his client is "leading a political and Pacific struggle."

Crucial election looming

The ruling comes in a particularly sensitive context as New Caledonia prepares to go to the polls on 28 June 2026 as part of provincial elections that will elect new members for all of the French territory's three provinces (North, South and the outer Loyalty Islands).

The results will then proportionally determine the makeup of New Caledonia's territorial Congress (Parliament), but also its "collegial" government and its President.

In May 2026, the French Parliament approved a partial change to New Caledonia's "special electoral list" to allow people born there and who have now reached voting age to cast their vote.

Since the autonomy Nouméa Accord was signed in 1998, a special provision was in place to exclude voters born after 1998 from this "special list" specifically designed for the crucial local poll.

This partial "unfreezing" of the provincial electoral roll was met with dissatisfaction from both the pro-independence FLNKS (who said no such change could happen outside of a wider comprehensive political agreement on New Caledonia's political future) and pro-France parties (who want New Caledonia to remain a part of France) who said the inclusion of "native" voters was not sufficient and that "spouses" of entitled voters should also be allowed to cast their votes.

The provincial elections, since the 2024 riots, were postponed three times.