Overseas Territories Plead for a New Minister Who is Up to the Urgency

Since 2017 and the accession of Emmanuel Macron, six Overseas Ministers have succeeded one another in managing the French overseas departments and communities and their approximately 2,8 million inhabitants.

The next tenant of Rue Oudinot - the current one, Marie Guévenoux, has been in office since February - could be known next week if Prime Minister Michel Barnier, appointed on September 5, sticks to the announced schedule.

"Mr. Prime Minister, in the past, you have had the opportunity to say that +overseas, this beating heart of France+ deserves special attention", the PS-affiliated MP from Guadeloupe Elie Califer challenged him in a letter dated September 9. He warned of the "singular urgency" of the island overseas territories, often isolated and affected by a questioning of France's supervision.

This "beating heart", which is home to "80% of biodiversity" and "makes our country the second largest maritime power in the world", "deserves our attention" especially since overseas difficulties "continue to grow", from economic recovery to "insufficient health infrastructure" which are all subjects "underestimated in recent years", according to Mr. Califer.

In Martinique, the high cost of living continues to stir up anger. Fifteen years after a general strike on this issue, which paralyzed the Antilles, food prices remain 40% higher than in metropolitan France, exasperating its inhabitants who are demanding "alignment" with mainland France.

In the Pacific, New Caledonia is in the grip of violence on a scale not seen since the quasi-civil war of the 1980s, leaving the economic fabric ravaged. In the Indian Ocean, tensions during operations against illegal immigration, unsanitary housing and water shortages punctuate daily life in Mayotte.

However, "concern" is "growing regarding the place occupied by our territories in the State's priorities, particularly in the context of the austerity policy and in the face of galloping inflation which is already exacerbating a tense economic and social situation", underline in a joint letter to Mr. Barnier Davy Rimane (GDR group, communists and overseas) and Christian Baptiste (related to the socialist), deputies respectively for Guyana and Guadeloupe.

"The discontent is palpable, and the expectations of your government are immense," they write.

"Acculturation"

Hopes are all the greater because "everything has been on hold" since the June election, the dissolution and the procrastination that followed, underlines Lætitia Malet, deputy general delegate of the Association of Overseas Municipalities and Communities (ACCDOM).

"Everything has come to a standstill," and the cancellations of meetings are "a dime a dozen," accentuating the delays already caused by the waltz of ministers in previous months, she laments.

As an example, she cites the octroi de mer and the fluctuation of versions of the promised reform of this customs duty on imported products.

"The great misery of our territories is the lack of knowledge by the people who decide for them", against a backdrop of numerous "preconceptions" and "acculturation" on overseas specificities, deplores Ms Malet.

Faced with "the shortcomings", the Barnier government should choose to return to a full minister, abolished in the summer of 2022 under the Borne II government, argues Mr. Califer. Breaking with a decade of government practice, the ministry dedicated to Overseas Territories was then placed under the aegis of the Minister of the Interior.

"Besides the symbolic nature", a full ministry "would undoubtedly facilitate exchanges and political progress between, on the one hand, the local level, and on the other hand, the national level", believes the MP.

"The national budgetary situation must not lead to further neglect of the overseas territories, but on the contrary to seek to draw lessons from previous experiences," conclude deputies Rimane and Baptiste.