“There is an urgent need to act, we want clear answers from the State,” says the president of the executive council of the territorial community.

The curfew imposed in certain districts of Fort-de-France has been extended until Thursday morning.

“We want appeasement”says Serge Letchimy, president of the executive council of the Territorial Collectivity of Martinique, invited Tuesday, September 24 on franceinfo. According to him, “There is an urgent need to act, we want clear answers from the State. It must enforce the law on cost and price control by eliminating margins.”

This Tuesday, the prefect of Martinique assured during a press conference that the order had been “restored” on the island after tensions linked to a movement against the high cost of living. The partial nighttime curfew, introduced on September 18 in certain districts of Fort-de-France and the neighboring commune of Lamentin, has been extended until Thursday morning.

On site, Serge Letchimy still talks about “a movement with an extremely present tension.” “We want calm to return to certain very troubled areas and we also want these demands to be taken into account.” For the president of the executive council of the territorial community of Martinique, answers are needed “rapid”, “urgent which are imposed on distributors, CMA CGM transporters, those who make super profits on prices and those who have not understood that the model has come to an end”. He mentions an additional cost of prices which “exceeds 40%, 100%, 200%. This is not acceptable because it is an expensive life that leads to misery.”

The president of the executive council, in conjunction with the prefect, is proposing a system of capping prices for three years on 54 families of basic necessities, “which makes 6,000 products which could see their prices drop provided that the rate of sea tax is set to zero”This customs tax was created in 1670 in Martinique and was initially intended to apply for a limited time. “It’s a tax that weighs”he emphasizes. He also asks “the end of unjustified margins in the areas of transport and distribution” and hopes that the State will also make efforts on transport within the framework of territorial continuity.

He also denounces a “postcolonial economic system that has run out of steam” and ask “more food autonomy”. Serge Letchimy specifies that “80% of what we consume, we import, it doesn’t make sense, we have to favor local production.” For him it is necessary “to get away from the logic of massive imports”. “It is not just a country of bananas or rum to export”, he hammers home. The CGT of Martinique is calling for an unlimited strike on Thursday, the date on which a new meeting with the major retailers is to be held.