Burning barricades, burned or looted stores and “thugs on motorbikes”: the situation remained tense on Friday in Martinique, a French island in the Antilles, despite the establishment of a curfew, against a backdrop of protests against the high cost of living.
Located nearly 7,000 kilometers from Paris and colonized by France in 1635, Martinique has been gripped since September by a mobilization against the high cost of living initiated by a movement called the Rally for the Protection of Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources (RPPRAC). , which degenerated into urban violence, with numerous episodes of looting and acts of vandalism.
All night from Thursday to Friday, the police tried to contain the rioters who erected dozens of roadblocks across the island.
Thirty-two people were arrested, according to a source at the prefecture, and twelve police officers were slightly injured. Some 150 vehicles burned, including those of a rental company, and 14 commercial premises were set on fire.
In Carbet (north), the village’s only pharmacy burned down, for example. “There’s nothing left. I’ve lost everything,” its owner, Willy Hilaricus, reacted to AFP, lamenting that “this creates a problem of access to care for the population” of this relatively isolated village.
– “Motorcycle thugs” –
Fort-de-France airport reopened Friday morning with the landing of a first flight from the Dominican Republic shortly after 10:00 a.m. local (4:00 p.m. in Paris), after having had to close the day before, due to the intrusion on the tracks of a hundred demonstrators.
Eight people were arrested following this invasion, AFP learned from a police source. The intrusion, against a backdrop of rumors of police reinforcements denied by the prefecture, caused the diversion to Guadeloupe, another French island in the Antilles, of three planes and more than 1,000 passengers.
Heart of the clashes, the few kilometers of highway separating Le Lamentin from Fort-de-France, on which “around sixty thugs on motorcycles” circulated, according to the source at the prefecture.
It was on this road that two people on a motorbike died instantly on Thursday evening who were traveling in the wrong direction without a helmet and who collided with a car.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, a 20-year-old man died during the looting of a shopping center and another, aged 30, was “seriously injured by gunfire”, according to a police source.
– Schools closed, blank plan –
In a press release, the association of mayors of Martinique and that of mayors of France called for “calm and dialogue (…) in the face of the escalation of urban violence”.
The Martinique prefecture also announced a ban on demonstrations and gatherings on the island until Monday.
Already closed on Thursday, schools will remain closed on Friday “given the uncertainty of the current social context and as a precautionary principle”, according to the rectorate.
The Martinique University Hospital announced on Thursday the launch of a blank plan during which “deprogramming of surgical procedures or consultations are organized”. Pharmacies on the island said they were “no longer able to provide emergency service”.
Without it being possible to establish a link with the riots, the lifeless body of a man riddled with bullets was found Friday afternoon in Four-à-Chaux, a working-class district of Lamentin, the prefecture said. in a press release.
The movement against the high cost of living, a recurring theme in overseas territories, was launched at the beginning of September by the RPPRAC, which demands an alignment of the prices of food products with France, 40% more expensive in Martinique.
More than one in four Martinicans (27%) lives below the poverty line, almost twice the rate in mainland France (14.4%), according to 2020 figures.
