An investigating judge has modified the judicial supervision of Kanak independence activist Frédérique Muliava, who was being prosecuted for an alleged leading role in the 2024 New Caledonian independence riots.
Ms Muliava, one of seven New Caledonia nationals transferred to mainland France during the – at times – violent protests almost 12 months ago to the day that were condemned has been allowed to leave for home back to Noumea, a French court has reportedly ruled.
The Agence France-Presse reported the ruling only from "sources close to the case".
One of the lawyers for Ms Muliava, François Saint-Pierre, confirmed the modification to the news agency in Paris, but refused to comment further.
Ms Muliava remains the chief of staff to the President of the Congress of New Caledonia and is a renowned Kanak activist for the Field Action Coordination Unit, a pro-independence party that French loyalist militias have accused of carrying out violence with the tacit complicity of the local police.
The French government alleges the Indigenous organisation is behind the riots that ultimately resulted in at least 14 known deaths on the Kanaky side of the unrest.
Ms Muliava was transferred to Paris four days after her arrest in the protests that cost of more than two billion euros over damage to private property and government infrastructure.
The Parisen investigating judge ruled that it appeared "disproportionate" to force Ms Muliava to remain in mainland France, far from her family, and to prevent her working as a teacher, according to an unnamed source close to the case.
The decision follows a request from Ms Muliava's lawyers to lift the judicial supervision that they had ultimately obtained lesser obligations.
She is notably required not to have contact with other people charged in the case, and not to participate in a public demonstration in New Caledonia, a source close to the case also told Agence France-Presse.
The civil unrest in the French Overseas Collectivity had first arisen after a controversial change to the electoral rules surrounding voting.
French nationals that had lived in New Caledonia for 10 years were given the right to vote that would likely favour the anti-independence movement for the Micronesian state to remain sovereign to France.
Like nine other accused Kanaky ringleaders, including three activists that were allowed to remain in New Caledonia, Ms Muliava was subsequently indicted in an investigation initially conducted out of Nouméa.
Investigations were opened on the suspicion of complicity in attempted murder that included being a party or being an accomplice to murder attempts and thefts involving use of weapons, in addition to criminal conspiracy, participation in a group formed to prepare for violence against people and/or the destruction or damage of property, and armed robbery.
Along with six other independence activists, including Christian Tein, president of the Socialist Kanak National Liberation Front, informally in French referred as FLNKS, Ms Muliava was flown to detention in France, more than 17,000 kms away.
She has been imprisoned in Europe under house arrest via electronic surveillance before being placed under judicial supervision.
The judicial investigation had been transferred from Nouméa in January 2025 to be entrusted to an investigating judge in Paris.
This came as a wish from the activists, who denounced repeated violations of their presumption of innocence and their right to seek a fair trial in Noumea.
