> Protests erupted after a bill that would allow some French residents of the islands to vote, potentially diluting the power of the indigenous electorate. New Caledonia held a referendum on independence in 2021 that overwhelmingly voted to stay with France after key local groups boycotted the ballot.

This is an extremely misleading paragraph.

Everyone is a "French resident". My understanding of the situation is that the current agreement on the local governance of the territory is that only citizens who were residing there some 25 years ago have the right to vote in the elections for the local assembly. This is what the government wants to change.

The previous deal with independentists was to organise not one but three referendums on independence. They all took place and they all rejected independence. The last one in 2021 was boycotted by independentists "because of Covid". A cynical interpretation may be that they expected to lose again and that this was a tactic to be able to reject the result.

Since then the government has been working on giving more power to the local assembly and as part of this they are planning to give all residents the right to vote in those elections. Obviously this is likely to weaken the position of the independentists but it also makes sense in context.