Strikes that have nearly frozen everyday life on France’s Caribbean islands burst into clashes on Monday as police battled protesters angry at high prices and resentful of a tiny white elite on lands better known for beachside vacations.
Police detained about 50 people after coming under a barrage of stones as they tried to take down barricades on the island of Guadeloupe, said Nicolas Desforges, the island’s top government official.
Strikers were sprayed with tear gas and several, including union leader Alex Lollia, were injured, France’s leftist NPA party said in a statement.
The leader of the LKP Collective that organized Guadeloupe’s strike warned that deadly escalation is possible.
“If anyone injures a member of the LKP or a striker on Guadeloupe, there will be deaths,” Elie Domota said in a television interview on Saturday.
On the sister island of Martinique, 160km south of Guadeloupe, police said that as many as 10,000 demonstrators marched through the narrow streets of the capital to protest spiraling food prices and denounce the business elite.
Government offices, schools, banks and stores have been shuttered for most of the past 12 days as islanders demand lower prices and higher wages. The stoppage in Guadeloupe began late last month.
Living costs are high on the French islands, which depend heavily on imports and use the euro. The strike also is exposing racial and class tensions on islands where a largely white elite that makes up 1 percent of the population controls most businesses.
France’s minister for overseas departments, Yves Jego, warned the strike could cause job losses and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told reporters that barricades “are not part of the legal means of expression.”
“Gas stations must be as accessible as possible so the people can get around and the people of Guadeloupe must be able to buy basic goods,” said Fillon, whose government deployed more than 100 riot police to the region last week.
France’s National Travel Agencies organization has reported that 10,000 tourists have canceled planned vacations in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Several hotels in Guadeloupe reported on Monday that they could not accept guests because protesters were congregated outside and staff did not show up to work.
The airport in Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, was closed, American Airlines said, which canceled flights to the island, stranding about 15 people in Puerto Rico.
Lines of cars snaked outside of gas stations in Martinique as islanders tried to fill their tanks.
Strikers allowed 28 of the island’s 85 gas stations to be resupplied, but forced small shop owners, who had opened over the weekend, to re-close and blockaded industrial zones.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS