General strikes on a scale never before seen are mobilizing the workers, employed and unemployed, the youths, women, peasants, craftsmen and small shopkeepers of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and tomorrow, it will be the turn of Reunion, Guyana, etc.

The mobilization in Guadeloupe has forced the French authorities to retreat and accept a great number of the demands put forward in a unitary manner by the collective LKP. The 200 Euros for the low wage workers are about to be won, despite the obstinate opposition of MEDEF [Mouvement des Enterprises de France: Movement of French Enterprises – translator’s note].

Its head, Parisot, said, speaking about Sarkozy, “he was not elected for that”, meaning by that giving in on the question of wages. This is due to the fear of an extension of the strikes to all the French colonies, and even to France itself.

The “February 5 Collective” of Martinique is putting forward similar demands. But the government is refusing to respond positively, preferring to use tension, repression and deterioration.

These powerful determined, massive struggles have brought to light the colonial oppression whose victims are the peoples of these last French colonies. The crisis is increased there by the mechanisms of looting and dependence which are similar in many ways to those that the dominated countries of Africa are suffering. Agriculture is oriented towards export, for the benefit of the monopolies that control all the economic sectors, in particular the import and export sectors, of large-scale distribution… and which bring in incredible super-profits. A caste of big settlers is monopolizing all the wheels of power. The neo-liberal policies have destroyed the mechanisms of social protection for a population living in misery.

All this has made these movements burst into the light of day.

The workers, youths, the popular sectors of France, feel a great solidarity with this fight, we see ourselves in the demands for wage increase, for measures against the high cost of living, for measures in favor of the unemployed. They were all shocked by Sarkozy’s silence during his press conference on February 18, while tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe, and Fort de France, Martinique.

We support the wage and social demands of the workers and popular masses of the colonies;

We affirm our solidarity with the organizations which are leading these movements, in particular with the LKP of Guadeloupe and the “February 5 Collective” of Martinique;

We commit ourselves to developing the broadest solidarity with these movements;

We denounce the provocations and repression of the French authorities, of the reactionary circles and of those who profit from the colonial system;

We affirm the need for put an end to the bonds of oppression and colonial dependence from which the French colonies are suffering.

Drawn up in Paris, Friday February 27, at a public meeting organized by the National Council of the Popular Committees (CNCP) of Martinique.

Signatories

The Alternatives – Association of the Workers and Youths (DIDF) – Student Union Federation (FSE) – Communist Party of Benin (PCB) – Communist Party of the Workers of France (PCOF) – Union of the Communist Circles (RCC) – ROC-ML – Union of the Communist Revolutionaries of France (URCF)

Contact us at pcof@pcof.net or enavant@club-internet.fr

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