In Guadeloupe, health passes spend the night at the Regional Council – Le HuffPost

MARTIN BUREAU via AFP

PASS – Breakage and intrusions. Protesters of the collective sanitary antipass – “more than a hundred people”, according to the region- burst on Thursday, December 23 in the hemicycle of the Regional Council of the Guadeloupe in Basse-Terre, by breaking windows and other objects. They then decided to spend the night there.

“It has become the people’s house,” Gaby Clavier, a trade unionist from the health branch of the UGTG, told the local press after a meeting with the president of the region Ary Chalus.

According to Jocelyn Zou, FO trade unionist and firefighter mobilized against the vaccine obligation, “the president is committed” to obtaining a meeting between the demonstrators and the parliamentarians, “Tuesday”.

“Unacceptable attack on democracy”

The demonstrators, who wanted to “sleep in the regional hotel”, must decide on Friday what to do with the movement. They ask the State to join the negotiating table, which has been interrupted for two weeks, to discuss the issues at the origin of the social crisis in Guadeloupe, with first and foremost the vaccination obligation.

The intrusion of the demonstrators at the end of a plenary session of elected officials was condemned by the entire political class of Guadeloupe. “These facts […] are part of a radicalization that uses terror ”and are“ an unacceptable attack on democracy ”, estimated the elected officials of the Standing Committee of the department.

“Destroy the furniture in the Region, […] ransacking the offices of agents, molesting journalists, insulting and threatening agents of the Guadeloupe region is inexcusable! ”, denounced the regional executive earlier, criticizing in a press release“ practices of intimidation and unworthy violence ”.

“No to the health pass”

“The collective broke the entrance gate and the door to the reception hall, and they entered the hemicycle as a plenary was ending,” said a communications manager for the region on Thursday. She added that the elected officials had “had time to leave the hemicycle” and that the president of the region, Ary Chalus “locked himself in his office”.

The latter was able to count on the support of the Minister of Overseas Territories, Sébastien Lecornu, but also of Renaud Muselier, president of the PACA region.

No claim justifies hindering the smooth running of an assembly of elected officials in the middle of a plenary session.
the @ Prefet971 is in contact with the president of the region @ achalus971 to take the necessary measures in the face of the eruption of demonstrators in the @CRGuadeloupe.

– Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) December 23, 2021

According to images broadcast by the local channel Guadeloupe la 1ère, the demonstrators invaded the hemicycle singing. “No to compulsory vaccination! No to the sanitary pass ”, one could read on a banner.

“There are more than a hundred people in the hemicycle”, according to the press service of the region, but in total it is “more than 400 people” who invaded the places, including those who remained. outside. “They prevent us from going out,” she added.

Aborted negotiations

In Guadeloupe, resistance to vaccination is strong. The archipelago was affected in November by a protest movement, sometimes violent, born of the opposition to the obligation for nursing staff and firefighters to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Wider social demands subsequently emerged.

This protest is led by a group of organizations, particularly trade unions and citizens, who are very demanding.

The negotiations which were to begin in mid-December to resolve this crisis aborted in mid-December and did not resume after the elected officials left the negotiating table on the grounds that the main demand of the collective, to return to the vaccine obligation, was state competences, not theirs. To satisfy the other points of demand, they formulated their proposals on social and family issues on a website.

Weekend of events

This weekend, demonstrations took place in several places on the island. On Saturday, protesters blocked access to the island’s largest shopping center, crowded, days before Christmas, for several hours, blocking people inside.

A fire then broke out in the hypermarket. After a complaint from the management of the establishment, the investigation will have to determine “if the two facts are related”, indicated the prosecutor’s office of Pointe-à-Pitre.

Violence is also regularly committed inside the Pointe-à-Pitre CHU, against the management but also non-suspended caregivers.

During a previous intrusion at the end of October at the headquarters of the region, demonstrators had replaced the French flag on the prefecture with the independence flag of Guadeloupe.

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