Crisis in West Indies: In Fort-de-France, “As soon as night falls, it’s as if it became another island”

To stop the violence that accompany the social movement started on the island on November 22, the prefect of Martinique has established a strict fireplace from 19 hours.

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The sun begins to decline, and Marguerite Lagier, 43 years old, presses the footsteps on the sidewalk of the boat, this Saturday, November 26. From a delicate gesture, she raises her white guipure skirt to sprout a carbonized scrap cluster that still obstructs this crossroads of Schœlcher, commune of the west suburbs of Fort-de-France. The day before, the maternal assistant – “Blood for Martinique Blood”, as she likes to describe – did not clutch the eye of the night. From its apartment of the city Ozanam, it has heard throughout the night the flight of the helicopters and the firing of the police which, since Thursday, tries to uphold the strict curfew set up between 19 hours and 5 hours to stop The violence that accompany the social movement started on the island on November 22, in the wake of the one who created in Guadeloupe.

“As soon as the night falls, it’s as if it became another island,” says Marguerite Lagier, in the queue of a bakery that already begins to lower the curtain. The woman who precedes her, at least twenty years her eldest, turns abruptly. “They attacked the godissard job with a tractor, then they burned everything. No, where do we get there?” She inscribes, before embarking on an extension cord, this sound of disapproving if Characteristic of the West Indies, whose duration is proportional to the annoyance of his speaker.

Marguerite Lagier looks up in heaven. “These are the two sides of the same room. One is beautiful, alive, full of positivity, and the other is so dark and angry. It is this mix of both, Martinique”, recognizes this divorced mother , who leaves with three chopsticks under the arm … and “a lot of worry for the future”.

“What am I going to say to the children I keep yesterday, there is one who asked me why I scold him when he taps his boyfriend while everyone taps on everyone . We do not show the good example. “

” A “Black Friday” to Martiniquaise “

A few kilometers away, in the center of Fort-de-France, near the vegetable market of the pavement street, the atmosphere is so quiet that we would doubt to be Saturday. “All the dams on the roundabouts were emptied,” says Cavalier Didier behind his stall. The days before, the seller, who “supports the mobilizations” by principle, but does not participate, had put up to two hours to win his location from his residence of Lamentin, just twelve kilometers away. His only fear? The tank of his car, which reached the “last fateful quarter”. “It means to find a station where there is gas, then queue for hours … must understand us, when we hear the word” scarcity “, we panic. But the word” shortage “, here, here, here, here, It is pronounced as soon as five young people get in front of a truck … “, it’s brawl.

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/Media reports.