A Paris court has eased the pre-trial conditions for New Caledonian pro-independence figures, including that of ethno-Kanaky strongman Christian Téin, with the men permitted to return to the island nation.

The faces of the Indigenous movement in Pacific territory under French post-colonial rule had been flown to mainland France to face court procedures following their arrest in Nouméa last year by police loyal to France.

They were allegedly suspected of playing key roles in the political riots which broke out in May 2024 and a month later were indicted with criminally-related charges to undermine French law on the Melanesian Island.

The ruling to release the figureheads of the Kanaky fight tor self-rule allayed fears from the movement that Tein, the 57-year-old in charge of the revolutionary Field Action Coordination Unit, may not have been allowed back in his ancestral homeland anytime soon.

His release had last year come with strict conditions that he and the five other pro-independent militants were to remain in France or interfere with other persons associated with the case.

Téin's latest conditions had followed another independence activist, Frédérique Muliava, a staffer in the Indigenous action group, who had his judicial supervision modified earlier this year after he was prosecuted for allegedly playing a leading role in the riots.

The Paris court ruling was based on the Field Action Coordination Unit leader being no longer incarcerated nor call for violent actions against the government in New Caledonia.

The case had previously been transferred from a panel of peer judges in Nouméa to a group of Paris magistrates in January 2025.

Téin still faces charges related to organised crime for events that took place during the riots from May 13 last year, following a series of demonstrations and marches which resulted in 14 deaths and allegedly more than two billion Euros worth of material damages.

The marches across Noumea were in opposition to a plan from the Paris government to modify the French Constitution to open the list of voting eligibility to non-Kanak, French metropolitan residents to vote in the local New Caledonian provincial elections.

The Indigenous pro-independence movement say the changes would effectively dilute the Kanak Indigenous vote and gradually bring the overwhelming 40 per cent of New Caledonia's population closer to a representative minority.

A Field Action Coordination Unit which the Caledonian Union, a populist centre-left party which is behind the pro-independence Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front, was set up 18 months ago to maintain a physical presence and deterrent to para-military loyalists.

Although Téin and some of his Kanak cohorts were jailed at the time, he was also designated, in absentia, to lead the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front's umbrella group at its congress just three months after his alleged role in the riots.

During the same congress, two other pillars holding the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front up, the moderate pro-independence Progressive Union in Melanesia and the Kanak Liberation Party, distanced themselves from Téin's Field Action Coordination Unit in a de facto alliance split from the Caledonian Union while remaining absent from the front's political bureau meetings.

Caledonia Union vice-president Mickaël Forrest publicly welcomed the recent ruling, saying it was "great news" and the accused should be presumed innocent to "make it possible for all our militants to see each other".

But there was also indignant outrage from the pro-France quarters in New Caledonia.

Outspoken leaders from French metropolitan-supported parties, Sonia Backès, Nicolas Metzdorf and Virginie Ruffenach, believed the return of the men could reignite and cause more social unrest.

"(Nicolas) Sarkozy will be jailed for posing a risk to public order, but Téin will be brought back to New Caledonia," Backès, who wrote on social networks, ridiculed the supposed lack of risk of the former French president compared to a militant revolutionary.

Metzdorf alluded to the "trauma" associated with the Kanak pro-independence leader's physical presence in New Caledonia.

Ruffenach also questioned whether "the judges do realise (the) gravity of their ruling".

"We're opposed to this... it's like bringing back a pyromaniac to New Caledonia's field of ashes while we're trying to rebuild," she told New Caledonian media.

A supposed non-political petition has been published online to express "firm opposition" to Téin's return to New Caledonia "in the current circumstances" over terms of civil peace amid the social and economic context of the 2024 riots.

The latest update available has the petition collect around 10,000 signatures.

Recent negotiations on New Caledonia's political future held in July of this year sets out a roadmap for the French overseas territory's future status.

It mentions the creation of a "State of New Caledonia", a short-term transfer of powers from Paris to the hands in Noumea, including local control in foreign affairs and a new dual French-New Caledonian nationality and citizenship.