Hundreds of people attend New Caledonia's shrimp and deer festival in Bouloupari where an assortment of stalls offer deer meat, plants, and knives, among other things. The fair is famous throughout the archipelgao and brings together Caldoches, descendants of European settlers, and the Kanak community, the Indigenous Melanesian people. "Everyone puts aside everything that is identity-based to really come together as one people. That's what we need, that's what we need today," says civil servant Gregory Dubourg. Last year there was months of deadly unrest in the French Pacific territory between pro-independence Kanaks and communities loyal to Paris. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES