"French second class" Paris throws its citizens into the Antilles in the abyss of autonomy?

The protests in the French Antilles are still ongoing, sparked in response to the central government’s decision to impose vaccinations on health sector workers, with demands that had long been held in the hearts of the people of Guadeloupe and Martinique, calling on Paris to take responsibility for the marginalization of these lands.

Paris, which responded only with an iron fist, and imposed from the first days of the protest its suppression, and with the onset of violent clashes between its police and the population, imposed a curfew and sent special forces to the two islands.

This further fueled the ongoing violence. On Sunday, the Prosecutor of Fort de France, neighboring Martinique, reported that it had counted "incidents of special intensity" represented by the destruction of a gas station and a post office, and that "four gendarmes were wounded, especially in the face." The regional administrations said 12 people were arrested in Martinique and four in Guadeloupe.

Faced with this reality, the French government decided on Friday to take a step backwards by postponing the imposition of the health passport on the residents of the two islands. And the French Ministry of Health announced, in a statement, "an additional deadline to finalize the effective implementation of the imposition of the vaccine in the Antilles."

On the other hand, the Minister of Overseas Lands, Sebastien Locorno, spoke of granting the islands autonomy, arguing that the request came from local actors. While observers see this as an attempt to evade the government's responsibility for the care demanded by the residents of Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Talk about the autonomy of the Antilles

"Some officials raised the question of autonomy," Sebastien Locorno said in a televised address to Guadeloupe. "In their opinion, Guadeloupe can manage itself better. They want more freedom of decision-making from local decision-makers," he added.

This is before he asserted that "the (French) government is ready to talk about it and there are no bad discussions as long as these discussions are aimed at solving the real problems of daily life for the people of Guadeloupe." In an interview with him, on Sunday, with the weekly "Le Journal du Dimanche", the French minister explained that "autonomy is not independence," and said that "if the government had not proposed the matter, these recent developments would have harmed the relationship of those territories with the state in Paris," referring to the ongoing protests. .

For his part, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in an interview broadcast on BFMTV that "the discussion of autonomy is not a discussion of independence." He also "came at the request of the elected representatives of those regions so that it would not be said that the government does not listen to the requests of the elected," stresses Darmanan.

Are the protesters demanding autonomy?

The 'listening of the elect', which Darmanan reasoned with, the government's proposal, is matched by the repression and practice of a policy of deaf ears vis-à-vis the protesters. Those who came out denouncing the "complete absence of government care", according to Guadeloupean unionist Maite Hubert, and calling on the state to "listen to the suffering of the Guadeloupeans", according to Guadeloupe's president, Ari Chalo.

While "the threat to health sector employees with dismissal was only the point that overflowed the cup of the deteriorating situation," Mighty added in a previous press statement to her. Added to the continuing deadly effect of Chlordecone among the Guadeloupeans, exposing one of the most heinous crimes of the systematic poisoning practiced by the French authorities against these populations. With weak health infrastructure, difficult access to potable water, and widespread unemployment and poverty.

These are all demands that the French government did not respond to, but rather preferred to present autonomy as an alternative, which made it likely that the government is trying to escape forward and evade its social and economic responsibilities towards the Antilles. This was also expressed by the leader of "proud France" Jean-Luc Milanchamp, who considered the proposal for autonomy "astonishing", and called for not to talk about the status of the islands before "the time has come for that", given that "the social situation and the state of health emergency" are currently a priority.