(Pointe-à-Pitre) The dismantling of blocking roadblocks began Sunday in Guadeloupe where reinforcements of law enforcement officers who left the metropolis arrived, but the violence continued forcing the rectorate to suspend on Monday the reception of students in schools, colleges and high schools.
“A first part of cleaning” was able to take place on Sunday “and it will continue tomorrow”, said Eric Dethelot, on-call manager of Route de Guadeloupe
“Thanks to the security forces present and the requisitions from the prefecture, we were able to clear the axes with greater means such as grapple trucks, dump trucks with more tonnage,” explained Mr. Dethelot. “The key was also to be able to store what we picked up somewhere, so that it wouldn’t end up on the road again just after”.
Reinforcements of police and gendarmes sent from metropolitan France, in particular 50 members of the GIGN and Raid units, arrived on the island on Saturday evening.
Certain axes have been cleared, such as the “route des Mamelles”, which crosses the National Park in the center of Basse-Terre. But a dozen dams “reinforced in the afternoon” remained in place, in several strategic points of the archipelago.
These barricades made of heterogeneous objects, such as metal sheets, garbage containers, or trees, are held by “15 to 50 people”, underlines Colonel Jean-Pierre, from the command of the Gendarmerie of Pointe-à-Pitre. . Groups that can “reform” a few hours after being dispersed, according to the same source.
Thirty immediate appearances
The continuation of “urban violence, abuses and other obstacles to movement”, led the rectoral to suspend Monday the reception of students “in schools, colleges and high schools” of mainland Guadeloupe. “The situation remains uncertain regarding road traffic and the possibility for staff and students to move safely and safely seems compromised at this stage,” he said in a statement.
Thirty people will be tried on Monday in immediate appearance in Pointe-à-Pitre, suspected of having participated in the urban violence that has agitated the island for a week, said the public prosecutor, Patrick Desjardins, on Sunday evening.
The night from Saturday to Sunday remained agitated in the streets and on the roads of the island, between roadblocks, fires and looting which led to 38 arrests during the night and left two wounded among the security forces.
These incidents took place despite the curfew that runs until Tuesday morning, every night from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m.
In several towns on the island, food stores were looted, as well as pharmacies. “Each time, a barricade placed upstream prevented us from moving forward”, according to the gendarmes who also testify to suspicion of “false calls to lure us elsewhere, just like the firefighters”. In the town of Morne-à-l’Eau, a police station was set on fire.
According to the prefecture, four pharmacies were thus fractured.
“Firmness”
The state’s response is first and foremost that of “firmness”, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Sunday, describing the situation as “intolerable and unacceptable” in Guadeloupe.
“This small minority who blocked by words, by words [la vaccination], today she is radicalized and she tries to block them, to intimidate them with violence ”, he denounced, referring to“ threatened caregivers ”,“ pharmacies prevented from opening ”and“ ambulances blocked on the dams ”.
Since the summer, the vaccination rate has increased in Guadeloupe, with a rate of nearly 90% of caregivers vaccinated, and approaching 50% in the general population.
Prime Minister Jean Castex, accompanied by Overseas Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Minister of Health Olivier Véran, must at the same time receive on Monday evening elected officials from the island in order, said Matignon on Sunday, to allow them “to expose their analysis of the situation on the spot ”. The meeting should also allow “a dialogue on the consequences of compulsory vaccination for caregivers and firefighters. ”
A call for a general strike in Martinique, the neighboring island of the Antilles, was launched for Monday.