Prices finally more affordable? The State announced that it had signed an agreement in particular with distributors to reduce food prices by “20% on average” in Martinique, an island in the Antilles that has been in the grip of a mobilization against the high cost of living for more than a month.
This agreement, reached on Wednesday evening in Fort-de-France at the end of a seventh round of negotiations and announced by the prefect of Martinique Jean-Christophe Bouvier, was however not signed by the collective Rassemblement for the protection of peoples and of Afro-Caribbean Resources (RPPRAC), at the origin of the mobilization since September 1, which slammed the door and called to “continue the movement”.
VideoWe compared a shopping basket in Martinique and Paris
The “protocol of objectives and means to combat the high cost of living”, in this territory where food prices are currently 40% more expensive than in France, was therefore signed between the local prefecture, the Community territory of Martinique, parliamentarians, distributors (hypermarkets and supermarkets in particular), wholesalers, the Grand Maritime Port, the transporter CMA-CGM, representatives of the economic world and the Observatory of prices, margins and income.
“The accumulation of collective efforts provided for in the protocol will allow hypermarkets to make a reduction of 20% on average in the sales prices currently practiced on a list of 54 families of products corresponding to the most consumed food products in Martinique”, a writes the prefect of Martinique in a press release.
“The lasting drop in food prices will result in particular, among others, from the entry into force of five major measures to structurally reduce the costs of purchasing and transporting the 6,000 imported food products (…), as well as a firm and obligatory commitment from major distributors to significantly reduce their margins on the sale of these products,” he added.
“There is an urgency to sign for the Martinique economy,” declared prefect Jean-Christophe Bouvier on the sidelines of the seventh round table on Wednesday, who also called for a “de-escalation of violence”, while the authorities extended Monday until October 21 a nighttime curfew on the island.
Since the beginning of September, the island has been the scene of social mobilization which degenerates at regular intervals into urban violence.
