two firefighters injured and two arrests during the strike against the vaccine obligation

Tension is mounting in Guadeloupe. Two firefighters were injured and two people were arrested, Monday, November 15, during the first day, peppered with incidents, of an unlimited general strike against the vaccine obligation and the health pass, according to the prosecution from Pointe-à-Pitre. Clashes pitted striking firefighters and gendarmes, who charged before being targeted by jets of water hoses manipulated by firefighters.

Other incidents between strikers and the police gave rise to two police custody for “facts of repeated threats to a police officer”, said the prosecution. Maïté Hubert M’Toumo, general secretary of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe (UGTG), a very influential union on the island, described these arrests as “provocation”. She denounced in a press release “a serious violation of a fundamental freedom of the right to strike” and she called “all members and activists to strengthen the picket lines”.

At the call of the union, employees of several establishments in the medico-social sector went on strike, said the UGTG in a second press release, as well as employees of many hotels while the tourist season is underway. Throughout the day more or less ephemeral dams were erected. “It will go up crescendo”, Jocelyn Zou told AFP. “We are between 70 and 75% of unvaccinated. Except that to ensure the minimum service, we are requisitioned by assignments. We do not understand why there, not being vaccinated does not pose a problem”, he quipped.