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rfmcdonaldIn the article "", the Times covers the deteriorating situation in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
Le Monde has more on the ground reports from Guadeloupe.
Guadeloupe--along with Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean--is an overseas department of France, as integrated politically into the French mainland as Hawai'i is into the American mainland. These islands' economies have not been able to fully make the transition to a high-productivity high-wage economy--even French Guiana, home of the French and European space programs, has a dual economy--and rates of unemployment in these overseas departments remains high while living standards remain low, financed substantially by income transfers by the French state. Given France's economic troubles something like this was probably inevitable somewhere in overseas France. We'll have to wait to find out when, and how, it gets resolved.
A union activist has died on the French island of Guadeloupe after a month-long strike escalated into riots and shootings.
Jacques Bino, who was in his fifties, was shot dead after being caught in crossfire while driving his car near a roadblock manned by armed youths, who opened fire at police in the capital Pointe-à-Pitre, an official from the local administration said.
He was the first victim of the escalating violence on the island, which has been crippled since January 20 by a general strike over the high cost of living.
The violence, which has caused growing concern in Paris, flared again overnight when gangs of youths looted shops, smashed shop windows and set up burning roadblocks along the main streets of the capital and in at least two other towns. At least 13 people were detained.
Paris appealed for calm and Michèle Alliot-Marie, the Interior Minister, called crisis talks on the deteriorating security situation.
Six members of the security forces were injured in shoot-outs with armed youths, including three police officers who were hurt while helping emergency teams that went to Mr Bino’s aid, police said.
The activist, who worked in a government tax office, was returning from a meeting, said Elie Domota, leader of the Collective Against Exploitation (LKP), the coalition of unions and leftist groups that organised the strike.
“The Government’s message is first of all to appeal for calm, that is the most important thing,” said Luc Chatel, a government spokesman, in Paris. “Everyone is better off finding a place at the negotiating table than on the barricades,” he told Europe 1 radio.
[. . .]
The LKP has said it plans to step up protests this week after the government refused to bow to demands for a monthly €200 (£177) pay increase for low-wage earners.
Mr Domota appealed for calm but also accused French authorities of treating the island, one of its four overseas departments, like a colony.
“Guadeloupe is a colony because they would never have allowed the situation to fester for so long in a French department before taking action,” Domota said on RTL radio.
The conflict has exposed race and class divisions on the island, where the local white elite wields power over the black majority.
The economy is largely in the hands of the “Bekes", the local name for whites who are mostly descendants of colonial landlords and sugar plantation slave owners of the 17th and 18th centuries.
A Socialist opposition leader, Malikh Boutih, said it was shocking to watch a police force “almost 100 per cent white, confront a black population” and drew a parallel with the 2005 suburban riots in France.
Le Monde has more on the ground reports from Guadeloupe.
Guadeloupe--along with Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean--is an overseas department of France, as integrated politically into the French mainland as Hawai'i is into the American mainland. These islands' economies have not been able to fully make the transition to a high-productivity high-wage economy--even French Guiana, home of the French and European space programs, has a dual economy--and rates of unemployment in these overseas departments remains high while living standards remain low, financed substantially by income transfers by the French state. Given France's economic troubles something like this was probably inevitable somewhere in overseas France. We'll have to wait to find out when, and how, it gets resolved.
