(Pointe-à-Pitre) Shooting targeting the police, looting and fires: the French department of Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, was still blocked on Saturday after another night of violence which originated in the anti-passport mobilization health, in this island where vaccination meets strong reluctance.
Despite the nighttime curfew imposed until November 23, pharmacies and telephone shops were the target of rioters. According to the French Interior Ministry, 29 arrests were made.
“The night was very agitated” confided a police source to AFP, reporting “live ammunition on a police vehicle” in the town of Gosier and “on mobile gendarmes” in Pointe-à-Pitre , the capital of this department of about 400,000 inhabitants located 600 km northeast of the coast of South America.
The French West Indies, where vaccination remains in the minority although on the increase, were faced this summer with a very hard 4e wave of COVID-19, the incidence rates having reached more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants on the island of Martinique and up to 2,000 cases in Guadeloupe, for an alert threshold of 50 cases.
The mobilization in Guadeloupe was launched five days ago by a collective of union and citizen organizations against the health pass and the vaccination obligation of caregivers, but it is now coupled with violence committed by rioters.
In total, according to the police, the police were targeted by firearms “in four different sectors” and “about twenty looting or attempted thefts” in shops in Pointe-à-Pitre and Gosier. .
In the town of Petit-Bourg, two telephone shops were set on fire and looted and, according to a source within the gendarmerie, “an armory was broken into”.
In Saint-François, in the far east of the island, “the gendarmes leaving the brigade were threatened by flaming projectile jets”. According to another source, the situation was calmer in the south of Basse-Terre (west), where “people, in particular entrepreneurs, are starting to organize and remove roadblocks, residents have helped the gendarmes”.
Saturday morning, the main axes remained blocked and new dams were installed.
“Incomprehensible” situation
An interministerial crisis unit chaired by the French Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, and Overseas Territories, Sébastien Lecornu, is to be held on Saturday at 5 p.m. GMT in Paris, “to see what new measures can be taken following the unrest. public order in the last few days, ”Mr. Lecornu’s entourage told AFP.
Friday, the prefect Alexandre Rochatte had already announced a curfew from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. “given the social movements underway in the department and acts of vandalism”, and prohibited the sale of gasoline in jerry cans.
Some 200 police and gendarmes are also due to arrive “in the coming days” to strengthen the police.
After a particularly violent night from Thursday to Friday, schools remained closed on Friday and, due to numerous roadblocks, activity is slowing down.
At the University Hospital Center (CHU), the only vehicles authorized are ambulances.
In a press release released Friday morning, the director general of the Regional Health Agency (ARS), Valérie Denux condemned “the endangering of the lives of Guadeloupe and Guadeloupe and the attack on caregivers”, describing the situation as “Incomprehensible, whereas nearly 90% of the caregivers of the territory are in conformity with the law” which obliges them to be vaccinated.
As of November 16, 46.4% of people over 18 had received at least one injection in Guadeloupe, according to this institution.