The situation remained tense on Friday, October 11 in Martinique, despite the establishment of a night curfew, in a context of protests against the high cost of living. Throughout the night from Thursday to Friday, police tried to contain rioters who set up dozens of roadblocks across the French West Indies island.
According to a source from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) prefecture, thirty-two arrests were made and twelve minor injuries were made among the police. About 150 vehicles were burned, including those of a rental company, and fourteen commercial premises were set on fire. The few kilometers of road that separate Le Lamentin from Fort-de-France appear to be the center of the fighting. On this road, two motorcyclists who were traveling in the opposite direction without helmets died instantly on Thursday night and collided with a car.
Since September, Martinique has been affected by a mobilization against the high cost of living launched by a movement called the Demonstration for the Protection of Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources (RPPRAC), which degenerated into urban violence. These appear to have passed a milestone from the night of Wednesday to Thursday, with numerous episodes of looting and acts of vandalism that continued during the night of Thursday to Friday despite the 9 p.m. curfew.
Airport reopening
In Carbet, the only pharmacy in the town caught fire. On National 2, which connects cities on the northern Caribbean coast with Fort-de-France, many intersections were still littered with charred debris, the scars of dams installed overnight. In the middle of the day, an AFP correspondent counted a dozen piles of smoke that partially blocked the road between the center of Fort-de-France and the university campus, located in the neighboring town of Schoelcher.
On the other hand, the Fort-de-France airport reopened its doors on Friday morning with the landing of a first flight from the Dominican Republic shortly after 10 a.m. (4 p.m. in Paris), after having had to close the day before, due to the intrusion. in the footsteps of a hundred protesters. Eight people were arrested after this invasion, AFP learned from a police source. The intrusion, amid rumors of police reinforcement denied by the prefecture, caused three planes and more than 1,000 passengers to be diverted to Guadeloupe. These passengers were due to leave for Martinique in the afternoon, the prefecture of Guadeloupe indicated in a press release. Some of them spent the night on cots in a Pointe-à-Pitre gym transformed into an accommodation center, an AFP journalist noted.
Schools closed and blank plan at CHU
The prefecture of Martinique announced a ban on demonstrations and meetings until Monday. Already closed on Thursday, schools remained closed on Friday “in the face of the uncertainty of the current social context”according to the rectorate. The Martinique University Hospital announced on Thursday the activation of a white plan and the island’s pharmacies declared “I can no longer provide emergency services”.
Without it being possible to establish a link with the riots, the lifeless body of a man riddled with bullets was found on Friday afternoon in Four-à-Chaux, a working-class neighborhood of Lamentin, the prefecture said in a statement. During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, a 20-year-old man died during the looting of a shopping center, according to the same source, and another, 30-year-old, was “seriously injured by gunshot”according to a police source.
The movement against the high cost of living, a recurring theme in overseas territories, was launched at the beginning of September by the RPPRAC, which demands a harmonization of the prices of food products in France, which are 40% more expensive in Martinique. Several round tables were organized that brought together state services, local authorities, economic actors and the RPPRAC, without positive results until then.
