“A yen pou yo!” (nothing left to give them, in Creole): a few thousand people from the overseas diaspora, dressed in red, demonstrated on Sunday afternoon against the high cost of living overseas, AFP journalists noted.
In a festive atmosphere despite the palpable anger, demonstrators gathered on Place Denfert-Rochereau, at the call of West Indian and Kanak associations, to rally the Ministry of Overseas Territories.
“Criminal monopoly”, “Insatiable Békés”, “Rèspektém nous”, could be read on the head banners. “No to the high cost of living!” chanted the crowd, Martinican, Guadeloupean and Kanak flags flying in the wind.
“We have the impression that the situation in the Overseas Territories does not concern the French people of France. This demonstration is there to make noise and make the situation known to other French people,” Louis-Louis explained to AFP. Philippe Mars, vice-president of the Ultramarins Doubout association (standing, in Creole), organizer of the event.
“We are asking for territorial continuity. (…) We must align prices”, he continued, saying he hoped “that there will be a turning point with this gathering”.
In the procession, Corry Diomar, 31, father of four children and who has family in the West Indies, does not take offense: “Most people in mainland France are not aware that back home, we pay double to eat The children there don’t have the privilege of eating it!” The cost of living “has gotten worse in recent years,” he insists. “A shopping cart at Carrefour, we pay double or even triple here!”
Same situation in New Caledonia, notes Céleste, a 32-year-old social worker and member of a Kanak collective who has family on the “Caillou”. “Everything is more expensive” there, she testifies. “People are struggling to feed themselves, take care of themselves and educate themselves properly.” And “it’s more complicated in the city because you have to pay for everything, we don’t have a food crop,” according to her.
“They are getting rich off our backs,” complains Sandrine Rosette, 42, a business manager who has family in Martinique, referring in particular to mass distribution.
A figure in the movement against the high cost of living in Martinique, who arrived the day before in Paris, Rodrigue Petitot, head of the Rally for the Protection of Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources (RPPRAC), also took part in the demonstration. For him, it was “important to show the diaspora that we see the fight they are waging here to support our fight there”.
“They told us that France is one and indivisible, that we have the right to move around, so to eat, it should be the same,” he said.
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