Clashes broke out in Fort-de-France, Martinique, Monday, and continued into the evening. Anti-chlordecone, a pesticide that has permanently polluted the West Indies, blocked access to the criminal court, where the high-voltage trial of seven activists was to be held.
Because of these clashes, the trial was finally postponed to June 3, and the court had to be vacated. The seven activists who were to be tried were arrested on November 28, five days after a demonstration that had gone wrong in front of a Robert shopping center (west-central Martinique).
For several weeks, protesters have been blocking shopping centers in Martinique, accusing their owners, often of large local families, of being the source of pollution with chlordecone, a pesticide used in banana plantations from 1972 to 1993, which infiltrated West Indian soil for hundreds of years and which is suspected of being the cause of prostate cancer, very numerous in the West Indies.
Jets of bottles against tear gas
Accused of meeting violence against a person holding public authority, degrading and participating in a gathering, the seven activists had been placed in police custody, and three of them placed under judicial supervision. All were scheduled to appear Monday afternoon. Several dozen supporters, gathered with banners, demonstrated until the court, the entrance to which was closely guarded by the police and filtered.
Limited access to the audience quickly escalated the tension. A first shot of tear gas to disperse the crowd set fire to the powder in the early afternoon. The demonstrators responded with stone throws, glass bottles and then Molotov cocktails. The incidents still continued at 10 p.m. In front of the court, barriers were notably torn down and burned down and members of the police force responded by firing tear gas.
Filtering at the start of the trial
"Individuals tried to force their way into the judicial court and threw projectiles against the police," said Martinique prefect Franck Robine in a statement. "Faced with this violence, the national police were led to use force to restore order," he added, deploring "these intolerable acts and the actions of the demonstrators who are carrying out the violence".
As the court forecourt burst into flames, in the courtroom, defense lawyers asked for the case to be referred because of their bar strike against pension reform and the need to be able to plead in a serene atmosphere. They also denounced the organization of the court in matters of security, assuring that if the demonstrators reacted thus, it was because they had been denied access to a hearing, however public. "In a 39-year career in Fort-de-France, I have never seen the entrance to the courthouse filtered to this point," explained Philippe Edmond Mariette, one of the defense lawyers to the president of the court. .
After deliberation, the latter postponed the case to June 3 and decided to lift the three judicial controls. The defendants' lawyers called for consultation in preparation for this hearing, fearing new tensions. Sunday, a demonstration of support for the seven defendants gathered a hundred people, mostly from the Antilles, Place de la Nation in Paris. "The appeasement must return and a small violent minority can not prevent it," said the prefect. "It is through dialogue and joint work that the difficulties of Martinique will be overcome," he concluded.
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