France declared a state of emergency on the Pacific island of New Caledonia on Wednesday after three young indigenous Kanak and a police official were killed in riots over electoral reform.

The state of emergency, which entered into force at 5 am local time (1800 GMT), gives authorities additional powers to ban gatherings and forbid people from moving around the French-ruled island.

Police reinforcements adding 500 officers to the 1,800 usually present on the island, have been sent after rioters torched vehicles and businesses and looted stores. Schools have been shut and there is already a curfew in the capital.

Rioting broke out over a new bill, adopted by lawmakers in Paris on Tuesday, that will let French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years vote in provincial elections – a move some local leaders fear will dilute the Kanak vote.

“No violence will be tolerated,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, adding that the state of emergency “will allow us to roll out massive means to restore order.”

He later signed a decree declaring a state of emergency that will last for 12 days and announced that French soldiers would be used to secure New Caledonia’s main port and airport.

Authorities also decided to ban video app TikTok, which the government during a bout of riots on France’s mainland last summer said helped rioters organise and amplified the chaos, attracting troublemakers to the streets.

TikTok could not immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier in the day, a spokesperson for New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou said three young indigenous Kanak had died in the riots. The French government later said a 24-year-old police official had died from a gunshot wound.

“He took off his helmet (to speak to residents) and he was shot right in the head,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

Noumea resident Yoan Fleurot told Reuters in a Zoom interview that he was staying at home out of respect for the nightly curfew and was very scared for his family.

“I don’t see how my country can recover after this”, Fleurot said, adding he carries a gun during the day when he goes out to film the rioters he called ‘terrorists’.

Police were outnumbered by protesters, locals told Reuters.

Electoral reform is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long tussle over France’s role in the mineral-rich island, which lies in the southwest Pacific, some 1,500 km (930 miles) east of Australia.

France annexed the island in 1853 and gave the colony the status of overseas territory in 1946. It has long been rocked by pro-independence movements.

LOOTING
New Caledonia is the world’s No. 3 nickel miner and residents have been hit by a crisis in the sector, with one in five living under the poverty threshold.

“Politicians have a huge share of responsibility,” said 30-year-old Henri, who works in a hotel in Noumea. “Loyalist politicians, who are descendents of colonialists, say colonisation is over, but Kanak politicians don’t agree. There are huge economic disparities,” he said.

Henri, who declined to give his full name, said there was significant looting, with the situation most dangerous at night.

The French government has said the change in voting rules was needed so elections would be democratic.

But it said it would not rush calling a special congress of the two houses of parliament to rubber-stamp the bill and has invited pro- and anti-independence camps for talks in Paris on the future of the island, opening the door to a potential suspension of the bill.

The major pro-independence political group, Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS), which condemned the violence, said it would accept the offer of dialogue and was willing to work towards an agreement “that would allow New Caledonia to follow its path toward emancipation”.

Most residents were staying indoors.

Witness Garrido Navarro Kherachi said she moved to New Caledonia when she was eight years old, and has never been back to France. Although eligible to vote under the new rules, she says she won’t “out of respect for the Kanak people”.

“I don’t feel I know enough about the history of Caledonia and the struggle of the Kanak people to allow me to vote,” she said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to work with counterpart Vladimir Putin to “rejuvenate” their countries as the pair started a day of talks in Beijing, saying China would “always be a good partner” of Russia, according to Chinese state media.

Putin arrived earlier on Thursday for a two-day state visit that will include detailed talks on Ukraine, Asia, energy and trade with Xi, his most powerful political backer and fellow geopolitical rival of the United States.

“The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it,” Xi told Putin as they met at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for their opening session.

“China is willing to…jointly achieve the development and rejuvenation of our respective countries, and work together to uphold fairness and justice in the world.”

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.

By picking China for his first foreign trip since being sworn in for a six-year term that will keep him in power until at least 2030, Putin is sending a message to the world about his priorities and the strength of his personal ties with Xi.

As they met, Putin told Xi that their co-operation was a stabilising factor.

“It is of crucial significance that relations between Russia and China are not opportunistic and are not directed against anyone,” Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency cited Putin as saying.

In an earlier interview with China’s Xinhua news agency before his departure, Putin praised Xi for helping to build a “strategic partnership” with Russia based on national interests and deep mutual trust.

“It was the unprecedentedly high level of the strategic partnership between our countries that determined my choice of China as the first state that I would visit after taking office as president,” Putin said.

“We will try to establish closer co-operation in the fields of industry and high technology, space and peaceful nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, renewable energy sources and other innovative sectors.”

Informal chats between the leaders and senior officials of both sides to be held over tea and dinner later on Thursday are expected to be key to the two-day trip.

Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said those talks would range over Ukraine, Asia, energy and trade.

Putin’s newly appointed defence minister, Andrei Belousov, as well as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Ushakov will also attend, along with Russia’s most powerful CEOs.

It was not immediately clear if Gazprom (GAZP.MM), opens new tab CEO Alexei Miller would go to China as he was on a working visit to Iran on Wednesday.

CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS OF TIES
Putin, 71, and Xi, 70, will participate in a gala celebration of 75 years since the Soviet Union recognised the People’s Republic of China, which Mao Zedong declared in 1949.

Xinhua confirmed Putin’s arrival for a state visit and the expected talks with Xi, while dozens of large Russian and Chinese flags fluttered around Tiananmen Square amid police patrols.

Some commentaries have hailed the pair’s “great power diplomacy”.

The event is the top trending item on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, with 1.4 million search requests.

The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat while US President Joe Biden says this century will be defined by an existential contest between democracies and autocracies.

Putin and Xi share a broad world view, which casts the West as decadent and declining, just as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and hard military power.

Putin will also visit the northeastern city of Harbin, which has historic ties to Russia. A mall devoted to Russian-made goods from about 80 Russian manufacturers opened on Thursday, the China Daily said.

China has strengthened trade and military ties with Russia in recent years as the United States and its allies imposed sanctions on both countries, particularly Moscow, for its invasion of Ukraine.

Western governments say China has played a crucial role in helping Russia withstand the sanctions and has supplied key technology that Russia has used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

But China, once Moscow’s junior partner in the global Communist hierarchy, is by far the most powerful of Russia’s friends globally.

Putin’s arrival follows a mission to Beijing late last month by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in part to warn China’s top diplomat Wang Yi against deepening military support for Russia.

 Six months after PVV head Geert Wilders won a stunning election victory, squabbling politicians finally clinched an agreement Wednesday on a coalition government, said the Dutch far-right leader, who will not be prime minister.

“We have an agreement among negotiators,” said Wilders, who had reluctantly agreed to give up his dream of running the European Union’s fifth-largest economy amid widespread unease over his anti-Islam, anti-European views.

It was not immediately clear who would be prime minister to lead the right-wing coalition government and replace Mark Rutte, who is almost certain to be tapped as the new NATO secretary general.

“Discussions over the prime minister will be held at a later time,” Wilders told reporters.

However, the main contender looks to be former education and interior minister Ronald Plasterk, who also played a key role in overseeing the initial talks.

Later on Wednesday, MPs for the four parties all gave their approval to the deal, the details of which were not immediately available.

In March, the four parties agreed to aim for a partially technocratic government made up of 50 percent politicians and 50 percent from outside politics.

The last time the Netherlands had such an “expert” government was in 1918 and it is not clear how it will work more than 100 years later.

After marathon talks on Tuesday, Wilders said it would be a “historic day” if his far-right PVV Freedom Party took part in a Dutch government for the first time.

The far-right has gained in elections across Europe but has struggled to translate votes into power as other parties refuse to work with them.

“It’s a worrisome day. We now have a radical right-wing party under Wilders that finds itself at the centre of power in the Netherlands,” said opposition leader Frans Timmermans from the Greens-Left alliance.

Wilders, sometimes nicknamed the “Dutch Trump”, has softened some of his policy positions but his election manifesto still called for a ban on the Koran and mosques.

After winning the largest share of the vote in the elections, Wilders was primed to be the country’s first far-right PM but at least one of his coalition partners threatened to torpedo a deal in that case.

“Do not forget: I will become prime minister of the Netherlands one day. With the support of even more Dutch,” Wilders said after reluctantly stepping aside.

“If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. Because the voices of millions of Dutch will be heard.”

The coalition talks – between Wilders’ PVV, farmers party BBB, the liberal VVD of Rutte and new anti-corruption party NSC – have been fractious, not helped by social media sniping from all sides.

In February, NSC head Pieter Omtzigt abruptly stormed out of the talks, ostensibly over disagreements over public finances but he was also known to have major concerns about Wilders’ more extreme policies.

“We’re going to form a government,” said Omtzigt. “We’ll wait and see who Wilders proposes as a prime minister candidate.”

Asked why it had taken nearly six months to form a government, Omtzigt smiled and said: “Well, it’s a bit the story of the forming of this government.”

“Every phase took just a bit longer than we thought, but that’s normal.”

It has become something of a tradition for Dutch governments to take a long time forming. The last Rutte government took 271 days to take shape. 

Details of the government pact were not immediately announced, but the incoming government is widely expected to impose stricter asylum migration policies.

Wilders, who has close ties with other European populists including Hungary’s Viktor Orban, has also made promises of lavish spending on healthcare and a lowering of the retirement age. But budget constraints make it unlikely the other parties will all support these plans.