| |
News from Guadeloupe as of
|
Sarkozy opens coffers to quell Guadeloupe unrest
|
| Published on Friday, February 20, 2009 | Email To Friend Print Version
|
POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe (AFP): France caved in to demands for wage increases in Guadeloupe on Thursday in the hope of ending a month-long strike that has plunged the French Caribbean island into violent protests.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced more than half and billion euros in new subsidies for the island, a tourist destination which suffers from the highest unemployment rates and most expensive living costs in France.
 |
| Protestors carry a portrait of Union representative Jacques Bino, 50, who was shot dead overnight. AFP PHOTO |
"Today we have a duty to listen to our fellow citizens and we have, at the same time, the duty to ensure the rapid return of civil order," he said after holding crisis talks in Paris with lawmakers from the Caribbean.
He promised to fly to Guadeloupe to inaugurate a three-month exercise to gather opinions on how to reform mainland France's relations with its overseas departments, former imperial outposts that now enjoy full political rights.
Sarkozy said 580 million euros (736 million dollars) would be put aside for action to raise living standards in the overseas departments.
Shots were fired at security forces during a third straight night of riots and police confronted gangs of youths who looted stores and ransacked the town hall in Sainte-Rose on the north coast.
Hundreds of police reinforcements have been deployed from mainland France to Guadeloupe after a labour activist was shot dead late Tuesday near a barricade in Pointe-a-Pitre, the island's biggest town and economic hub.
Following all-night negotiations, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Paris would make support payments to low wage earners totalling almost 200 euros (250 dollars) per month, as demanded by unions.
"I hope this will meet the demands for measures to address the high cost of living in the West Indies," Fillon told RTL radio.
The offer was to be made to the Collective Against Exploitation (LKP), a coalition of unions and leftist groups that launched the strike on January 20.
LKP leader Elie Domota gave a guarded response to the offer.
"We can't be satisfied with mere announcements," he told RTL. "They'll have to show us a detailed proposition.
"I think it's serious, but it's a shame they waited 30 days and until a militant died before they started making offers."
Police arrested 39 people overnight Wednesday to Thursday, some of whom were carrying weapons, said an official from the local administration.
Five stores, two restaurants and a car dealership were torched while police were ferried by helicopter to Sainte-Rose to end a looting rampage.
Local officials said five shotgun rounds were fired at security forces at Gosier, near Pointe-a-Pitre. No one was wounded but the police withdrew.
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.
World Cup winning football star Liliam Thuram, a Guadeloupe native, accused the government of waiting too long to take action and said white locals were responsible for the rising cost of living.
"The Bekes are the ones who are responsible. They hold monopolies in some sectors and set prices," Thuram told the daily Le Parisien.
Union representative Jacques Bino was shot dead on Tuesday night when he drove past a roadblock manned by armed youths in Pointe-a-Pitre. Three police who accompanied paramedics trying to help the dying man were lightly wounded.
Unions launched a strike on the neighbouring French island of Martinique on February 5. Most shops, cafes, banks, schools and government offices have been shut and the strike has hit the key tourism industry. | | | | Reads : 1333 | | | |
|
|
More news from Guadeloupe...
|
