“We are heading towards a monumental social crisis”, warns the CPME of the archipelago

Nicole Moreau, president of the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises of New Caledonia, spoke to France Culture on Wednesday.

“We are heading towards a monumental social crisis“, warns the president of the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME) of New Caledonia, Nicole Moreau, at the microphone of France Culture on Wednesday November 27. “We have 900 companies that have completely disappeared” et “25,000 employees who are unemployed“, she points out, while the bill for the riots last spring is estimated at at least 2.2 billion euros by the New Caledonian government, or 25% of the territory's GDP.

According to Nicole Moreau, “a large proportion of VSEs have not received anything“since the start of the revolt linked to the thaw of the electoral body, on May 13, which saw the destruction of a large part of the economic fabric of Nouméa.”It was the big ones who managed to get their damages reimbursed and not the small ones.“, continues the boss of the local employers' movement, six months after these riots which left 13 dead and billions of euros in material damage. “We have very small businesses that haven't received anything since May because their heads are in the dark, because they don't know how to fill out the paperwork, because they have been asked for documents that they didn't have anything or things that had burned.“