The police requested “reinforcements” in Guadeloupe, particularly during the end-of-year holidays, a month after the archipelago was shaken by urban violence, the territorial director of the national police said on Tuesday.
“I personally wrote to the Director General of the National Police “to officially send him a request for reinforcement of the mobile force units” pour “the Christmas period which is coming soon and the carnival period between January 5 and March 5, 2025“, declared divisional commissioner Christophe Gavat.
These festivities could be “complicated to manage”, he stressed during a joint press conference by the authorities.
Guadeloupe is facing a shortage of police and gendarmerie personnel, some having been deployed to the neighboring island of Martinique, which is facing incidents of violence amid protests against the high cost of living.
“The first numbers returned very recently and we are hopeful of recovering the rest“, the sub-prefect of Pointe-à-Pitre, Jean-François Moniotte, told AFP after the press conference.
Christophe Gavat also indicated that he had requested “reinforcements of judicial units to strengthen (its) staff who deal with legal procedures on a daily basis“.
Denouncing “a completely uninhibited use of weapons“, he clarified that “three procedures for attempted intentional homicide were opened within the Pointe-à-Pitre police station“because police officers were”targeted by shots“during the looting that occurred on the night of October 25 to 26.
Eleven businesses were then looted, at a time when Guadeloupe was deprived of electricity following a “sabotage” on the engines of the Jarry power plant, according to the authorities, against a backdrop of social conflict within EDF-PEI.
During this press briefing, the prosecutor of Pointe-à-Pitre, Caroline Calbo, estimated the damage of the violence in Pointe-à-Pitre “between 300,000 and 400,000 euros“.
