French Caribbean regions reject more autonomy

By Dominique Bareto:


FORT-DE-FRANCE (Reuters) - Voters in the French Caribbean territories of Martinique and Guyana rejected the option of greater autonomy in a referendum at the weekend, authorities said.

A year after protests against high prices in the island of Guadeloupe spread to other French overseas regions, the referendum offered the chance to vote for giving local lawmakers more scope to initiate legislation of their own.

Like other parts of France's overseas territories and regions, Martinique and Guyana depend heavily on support from the mainland, but suffer from higher unemployment than the rest of France and rely on expensive imported food and fuel.

The proposed changes would have given the regions a status similar to that of French Polynesia, which has more responsibility for its own affairs than the so-called overseas "departments" but they would not have led to full independence.

But nearly 70 percent of voters in Guyana, on the South American mainland, and 79.3 percent of voters on the island of Martinique voted to remain overseas "departments" that count as full parts of France and the European Union.

"I was surprised by the size of the result but not by the trend," said Marcellin Nadeau a local mayor who had backed the "yes" vote in the referendum.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the vote last year, saying changes were needed to improve governance in the Caribbean regions but his office said in a statement the vote showed how attached they were to the French Republic.

The vote was widely seen as a rebuff to local politicians who had asked Sarkozy to hold the referendum but officials said various factors were at issue.

"There were those who did not answer the question and who saw it as 'Do you want independence?' and who voted No," said Patrick Karam, a government official responsible for overseeing equality issues in the overseas territories.

"Then there were those...who asked 'What will happen to our social benefits in future?'" he told France Info radio.

The vote came as tensions returned to Guadeloupe, the scene of last year's most violent confrontations, where shops were burned and looted and a union leader was killed during a 44-day stand-off between protesters and police.

High prices, combined with what protesters saw as an unfair dominance of key sectors of the economy by the old white elite were the triggers for the protests and the problems have not disappeared despite an accord last year.

Elie Domota, leader of the LKP group which spearheaded the protests, last week called a strike on the island on January 20, saying prices had gone up sharply at the beginning of the year, despite government pledges.

Last year's protests in Guadeloupe ended with a deal to boost the local minimum wage by 200 euros a month and set price pegs on dozens of staple items to reduce the cost of living.

January 12, 2010

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