Guadeloupe: the social conflict at an impasse after the maintenance of the vaccination obligation for caregivers – archyworldys

The courtroom of the Pointe-à-Pitre court is almost empty, Monday, November 22, but the Deputy Public Prosecutor, Michaël Ohayon, wants to address the whole of Guadeloupe.

“Demonstrate, block, yes. But stealing, looting, destroying, it’s not Guadeloupe that we want, it’s not Guadeloupe that people want ”, launched the magistrate at the opening of a hearing day unprecedented in the recent history of the Caribbean island. Thirty trials in immediate appearance are organized to judge the alleged perpetrators of crimes committed on the sidelines of the social movement against the vaccination obligation of caregivers and firefighters, which has been shaking up the life of the French department for a week.

“The rule of law was in danger and the situation almost insurrectionary”, explains the prosecutor of the Republic of Pointe-à-Pitre, Patrick Desjardins, to justify the strategy “Zero tolerance” applied since the first violence. The police arrested 79 people and prosecutions were initiated at the slightest deviation.

In the accused’s box, Amela, for example, responds to an attempted theft of a bottle of liquid detergent. Frightened by the smoke in her apartment after the car fire in her street, she had entered a Super U store, already broken into, before leaving when the gendarmes arrived.

The government rejects the withdrawal of the vaccine obligation

“We are not on the high spectrum of delinquency”, concedes the prosecutor, who ensures that the perpetrators of the building fires (six in Pointe-à-Pitre) and the multiple break-ins – between November 18 and 22, 80 businesses were degraded – are also prosecuted. Once the message of judicial firmness has passed, “The next fight” of the public prosecutor’s office will be the release of the main permanent dams, a good ten, erected on the roads of the island.

Held by demonstrators close to trade unions during the day, by angry young people at night, these blockages are often rebuilt after each passage of clearing vehicles. The determination of the most mobilized Guadeloupeans, a minority on the island but whose claims are supported by part of the population, did not weaken on Monday, despite the meeting organized in Paris by the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, with many elected officials. local. Contact case, the head of government intervened by videoconference before being diagnosed positive for Covid-19 in the evening.

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