(Saint-Martin) Calm returned on Friday to Saint-Martin, French Caribbean territory, where the beginning of the week had been marked by roadblocks and serious clashes between demonstrators and gendarmes, one of whom had been wounded by bullets.
In Guadeloupe, on which Saint-Martin depends, a dam, that of Boucan, has been partially raised allowing alternating circulation for users of northern Basse-Terre. This dam, located in Sainte-Rose, was until then almost hermetic.
Ditto in Saint-Martin where traffic, alternating there too, is also again possible in the sensitive district of Sandy ground, even if it is still necessary to clear a passage between the carcasses of burnt cars and the scars of the clashes.
“It was time for calm to return and above all to settle down so that the tourist season which begins can take place normally”, welcomed the president of the Collectivity of Saint-Martin, Daniel Gibbs.
After the serious injury of a gendarme Thursday, the prefect of Saint-Martin, Serge Gouteyron, had indicated that reinforcements were on the way to “find the shooters”. The arrival of these reinforcements coincided with the return to calm on the island, without it being possible to know if the two events are linked.
Clashes pitted the gendarmerie against a group of people on Thursday at Sandy Ground and Nettle Bay, where the police were trying to evacuate a car wreck on the road, and a gendarme was injured.
Guadeloupe, Martinique and Saint-Martin are experiencing a strong social movement, born from the refusal of the vaccination obligation for caregivers and firefighters and which has spread to political and social demands, in particular against the cost of living, causing violence, looting and fires.