Guadeloupe: everything behind the general strike – The HuffPost

Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon

GUADELOUPE – The situation is “tense” in Guadeloupe. For three days this Wednesday, November 17, the island has been half paralyzed by a general strike at the call of trade union and citizen associations. Originally launched against the vaccination obligation of caregivers, the mobilization also testifies to old tensions and latent anger, which has been smoldering for much longer.

The general strike began Monday, November 15, with the blocking of roads and clashes between protesting firefighters and the police, with light injuries on both sides, and as many arrests. The next day, a demonstration gathered between 300 and 400 people in front of the CHU, whose accesses were blocked, reported an AFP journalist. The CHU has also condemned acts which “disrupt the functioning of the main health care establishment” on the island.

According to the management of the hospital center, 566 suspensions were pronounced, while the rate of compliance with the vaccination obligation is 87%. A high threshold, which does not prevent the mobilization from growing, carried by union and citizen associations, firefighters and other trades subject or not to the vaccination obligation.

Tuesday, teachers occupied the rectorate “in support of nursing colleagues of national education”, who will also receive their vaccine to continue to exercise. The mobilization also received the support of the union of the petroleum products branch of the UGTG, which has weight in a territory where the car remains the main means of transport.

This Wednesday, the president of the Guadeloupe Region Ary Chalus – vaccinated, but opposed to compulsory vaccination – declared at the microphone of franceinfo to be worried and to have alerted “the President of the Republic” and “the members of the government in charge of Guadeloupe” to the situation. “This blockage is not only due to this vaccination obligation, but also to all the problems (economic, editor’s note) that we encounter”, he underlined.

36.01% of vaccinated

“When we impose such violence (the suspension for refusal of the vaccine, editor’s note) on people that we applauded yesterday, it is easy to understand that we cannot remain silent and that we are angry”, explained To local RCI radio Gaby Clavier, UTS-UGTG union representative at the CHU. “We feel a lot of contempt for the hospital, which is why our anger is on the rise. We are even more determined ”.

The health pass and especially the vaccination obligation are at the heart of the demands. But these slogans are only the manifestation of a larger problem: the loss of confidence in public official speech.

As of November 10, only 36.01% of the Guadeloupe population over 18 had a complete vaccination schedule. The rate, particularly low, regularly applies to Guadeloupe – and to communities and ultra-marine territories as a whole – the remonstrances of the government. In Martinique, an investigation was launched by the ARS to understand the reluctance of ultramarines to vaccination.

Chlordecone and the French colonial past

“The causes are diverse” for the LREM deputy Olivier Serva, guest of BFMTV this Wednesday. “Overall, the weakening of the word of public authority. (…) In Guadeloupe, we experienced chlordecone, a terrible molecule that has poisoned our bodies, our flesh, our seas, our lands for 700 years. And on that, the state said that there was no problem that everything was fine ”,

Since then, Emmanuel Macron has recognized that “the State must take its share of responsibility”, all attracting the wrath of ultramarines and scientists for his comments on the terrible health consequences of this pesticide. But the long years of silence, as well as the still unresolved issues of the repair, have left their mark: “We had an exemption for chlordecone (while the pesticide was banned everywhere in France, the West Indies were able to continue using the product a few more years, editor’s note), it is therefore possible for the vaccination obligation ”, argued a Guadeloupe trade unionist.

Beyond this health scandal long passed in silence, the French slavery past still lurks: “As soon as we have the impression that we want to coerce us, more than to convince us, there is a tension”, explains Olivier Serva. . Jocelyn Sapotille, mayor of the municipality of Lamentin, speaks to him on France Inter “historical wounds still not healed”: a real breeding ground for the demonstrators while the population is “sensitive to this kind of arguments” because of the past. “We say to ourselves that over time, trusting the official word, it didn’t bring us much”, he analyzes.

On the same line, Ary Chalus evokes the issue of Sargassum – invasive toxic algae – on which “we do not really see the State moving”.

“Adapt to renew the dialogue”

This same official word is in any case “very firm.” On Tuesday, government spokesman Gabriel Attal warned the “small minority that is trying to instrumentalize” the situation. In the evening on the Guadeloupe channel Canal10, the prefect of the island Alexandre Rochatte denounced a “recovery which is more political than social” on the part of demonstrators in certain sectors.

Unlike Martinique where the epidemiological indicators are still high, the postponement of the vaccination obligation is at this stage excluded, insisted the representative of the State in Guadeloupe.

This end of inadmissibility ulcerates some local elected officials, including within the LREM majority. The deputy Olivier Serva thus refused to vote the law of 5 August 2021 on the extension of the health pass and the obligation of caregivers, due to the lack of appropriate legislation for overseas where the vaccination rate of caregivers did not exceed 20%, in the middle of the 5th wave and with hospital saturation. “France is diverse. We have to adapt in order to be able to renew the dialogue ”, insists the MP for the majority.

This position is shared by Fabien Roussel, PCF presidential candidate. In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister on November 15, he pleads for an “emergency plan for the overseas territories” where the risk is immense of a popular uprising overseas, synonymous with economic and institutional blockage. ”.

I call on the Prime Minister @JeanCASTEX for an emergency plan for the overseas territories!

These territories are paying a very heavy price for the pandemic linked to Covid-19. The situation is very worrying with thousands of bereaved and bruised families! pic.twitter.com/IR2zO63zAX

– Fabien Roussel (@Fabien_Roussel) November 16, 2021

He doesn’t think he can speak so well. In French Polynesia, a general strike notice was launched for November 24. Among the demands: the vaccine obligation, but also purchasing power, among others. In Martinique, the postponement of the vaccination obligation did not prevent the organization of a snail operation on the roads the next day. Participants are calling for its outright repeal, but the issue of purchasing power has also (re) emerged, reports Martinique La1ère. Like an air of déjà vu, twelve years after the massive mobilization of the Antilles in 2009.

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