Firefighters learned that a McDonald’s in the Dillon neighborhood was set on fire during the night of Tuesday into Wednesday. “I’m devastated,” Tania Jean-Louis, the manager of the fast-food restaurant, told local radio RCI. “The restaurant is unusable. It will have to be demolished to rebuild,” she laments. The employees are technically unemployed.
Authorities said a Carrefour hypermarket in the same neighbourhood was “occupied by around fifty people who barricaded themselves in the parking lot and tried to set them on fire”. A man who escaped on a scooter fell and was slightly injured when police dispersed him. He was arrested.
Food prices increased by 40 percent
The tensions are part of a protest movement against the high cost of living that began in early September. According to INSEE research in 2022, food prices in Martinique were 40% higher than in France.
According to authorities, “several roadblocks” were set up during the night of Tuesday into Wednesday. In the town of Ducos, southeast of Fort-de-France, “there were flaming roadblocks on the N8 and bullets were fired at the police”, according to authorities. A quiet return was made and “the roadblocks were removed” at 4am, according to authorities.
In night footage released by local media, garbage bins and some vehicles are engulfed in flames. According to Martinique la 1ère channel, the fire broke out near the Sainte-Thérèse church. “The cause is noble, but the method we are experiencing here discredits the movement,” Franceinfo Rosette Jean-Louis, head of the citizens’ council of the popular Sainte-Thérèse district, one of the hardest hit by the outbreak, told the media on Wednesday. violence.
Authorities said no injuries were reported to law enforcement overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. Six police officers were wounded by pellet gunfire in Fort-de-France the previous day. A gendarmerie squadron of about 100 soldiers was sent as reinforcements.
Violence had already erupted in Sainte-Thérèse on the night of September 2-3, when police officers were targeted by live ammunition. On the night of Friday into Saturday, two men opened fire on the facade of the Fort-de-France police station, but there were no injuries. “This strategy of chaos cannot lead to any positive result,” the prefecture warned. Martinique, a major seaport through which 98% of the goods entering and leaving this overseas territory pass, is also a target of the protest movement.
“Precautions”
Rodrigue Petitot, leader of the Rally for Protection, told AFPTV of the Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources: “Since July, precisely from July 1, we have been issuing a precautionary measure against large retailers, asking them to align their prices with mainland France.” (RPPRAC)
“We are French, we have the same ID cards, we have the same fines, we have the same taxes if not more taxes, we cannot understand why we cannot have the same prices, especially on food”, criticized Mr Petitot, nicknamed “R” on the Island.
Invited to a roundtable meeting in the province last Thursday with all major retail players and institutions, RPPRAC representatives left the negotiations after five minutes in response to the governor’s refusal to broadcast the discussions live on social networks.
