FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron arrived in New Caledonia today, insisting that police reinforcements sent in to help battle violent unrest would “stay as long as necessary.”

He also demanded the removal of protesters’ barricades in the Pacific archipelago, where the indigenous Kanak people have long sought independence from France.

Kanak leaders, who had declined Mr Macron’s offer of talks by video a week earlier, greeted him in person today, joining a meeting in the capital Noumea with rival loyalist leaders who want New Caledonia, which was seized by French forces in 1853 under Emperor Napoleon III, to remain part of France.