PARIS (Reuters)
- France is willing to discuss autonomy for the French Caribbean
territory of Guadeloupe if it is in the interests of the people who live
there, government minister Sebastien Lecornu said.
Guadeloupe
and the nearby French island of Martinique have seen several days of
protests against COVID-19 measures that have spilled over into violence.
Lecornu, the
minister for France's overseas territories, said in a YouTube video
issued late on Friday that certain elected officials in Guadeloupe had
raised the question of autonomy, changing its status as an overseas
region.
"The
government is ready to talk about this. There are no bad debates, as
long as those debates serve to resolve the real everyday problems of
people in Guadeloupe," he said.
That
was one of a series of initiatives he said the government in Paris
would be taking in Guadeloupe, including improving healthcare,
infrastructure projects, and a scheme to create jobs for young people.
The French
government this week announced that it would be postponing a requirement
that public sector workers in Guadeloupe and Martinique get a COVID-19
vaccination.
That had sparked protests, fanning long-standing grievances over living standards and the relationship with Paris.
In
Guadeloupe there is a historic mistrust of the French government's
handling of health crises after many people were exposed to toxic
pesticides used in banana plantations in the 1970s.
An
aerial view of a barricade of burned cars and debris on a round-about
blocking the traffic on highway N1 after violent demonstrations which
broke out over COVID-19 protocols, in Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe, November
23, 2021
