Riots, looting, fires, curfew, blank plan in the hospital… Three years after the health crisis that degenerated, at the end of 2021, into a deep social crisis marked by urban violence in Martinique, the island is reconnects with a vocabulary that he thought he had forgotten since the worst moments of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The highlights of this era also quickly became fashionable. In “The Routes of Martinique”, a community that brings together 40,000 users (11% of the island’s population) on the Telegram messaging application, strangers share in real time information about lanes blocked by rioters or unblocked by the police. police. “Filter dam on Lorrain Bridge! Only health personnel and people with a medical appointment will be able to pass.”warns a user named “Véro”, on Friday morning, October 11. Consulting the daily status summaries of the island’s main roads and intersections, prepared by Bison Futé volunteers, is once again essential before getting behind the wheel.
But this time, it was not the draconian health restrictions that ignited the gunpowder. On Thursday, after a night of riots in a dozen municipalities on the island, in a context of anger against the high cost of living, the prefect of Martinique, Jean-Christophe Bouvier, imposed the“Prohibition of driving on public roads and in public places throughout the territory of Martinique between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.”. This curfew is expected to remain in effect until Monday morning.
“The people defend themselves”
Tension has increased in Martinique since the release of 1Ahem September, of a movement to fight against the high cost of living, in this department where the price of food products is 40% higher than in France, according to an INSEE study. Aside from this mobilization, during the month there were clashes for several nights in certain sensitive neighborhoods of Fort-de-France and Lamentin, the two most important cities on the island. In response, the prefect of Martinique established an initial curfew, only in these neighborhoods, and brought in a gendarmerie and CRS squad as reinforcements.
Then, after two weeks of relative calm, the situation suddenly worsened after an operation “dead island” decreed on Wednesday by around thirty political, union and associative organizations. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, new riots shook much of the island. The prefecture reported on Thursday a “Ten fires in private buildings” in several locations. A territorial gendarmerie brigade building was set on fire in Carbet, while the island’s roads bristled with smoking barricades erected by rioters.
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