Protest action in Marigot into third day
Protest action on French St. Martin in now into its third day and citizens are not letting up the pressure on state officials showing their disagreement with a proposed Risk Prevention Plan (PPRN) that may result in many losing their properties and some not able to rebuild their homes after the devastation of hurricane Irma.
For three days now there have been clashes with Gendarmes and road blocks throughout the French Side paralyzing business and traffic bringing that side of the Island to a virtual standstill. The state of France has been flying in more and more Gendarmes to help quiet the situation but organizers and protesters are not having any of that as reason for them to stop their protest.
It has reached to the point now where territorial councilor in the opposition Mr Jules Charville has come out addressing the State and the protesters. Reminding the State that its time now to sit at the table and find a solution to the problem instead of bringing in more reinforcement and repressing protesters. The territorial councilor is asking the Gendarmes to hold off with their force since that would not stop the protest and solve the problem. And to the residents to avoid unnecessary violence
The state have already decided to go ahead and implement the PPRN in its new form. But they are now finding out this was not over looked by the population and they won’t let it happen. Reports reaching cmoorejournal.com News, states that the President of the Collectivitie Daniel Gibbs and Prefete Deleguee Sylvie Feucher are both pointing the blame finger at each other as the ones responsible for these actions by the population.
The organizers of the ongoing unrest have drafted several points as reasons for their action. Forming part of the reasons for those action are the PPRN, the poor quality water that was being distributed to residents on the French Side among other concerns. … Caharville stated that it will do the State representative Prefete Delleguee Sylvie Feucher well to sit with the Territorial Council or the Government and a delegation from the organizers of the protest and find common ground to solve this problem, it cannot be solved by force.
Meantime if no one is looking for ways to end the standoff, this could drag on and potentially have a greater negative impact on our Tourism product which we all stand to lose.
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