Guadeloupe: seizing the opportunity of a blackout…
On Friday October 25 in the French colony of Guadeloupe, shortly after 8:30 a.m., striking EDF employees in a month-long dispute with their management invaded the control room of the Pointe Jarry thermal power plant, shutting down its 12 engines*. Given that this power plant supplies almost all the electricity on this archipelago of 380,000 inhabitants, this provoked “a generalized electrical incident” – in other words, a blackout that lasted 39 hours and 28 minutes, until the evening of October 26 and the full restoration of electricity on the island.
Following the impromptu shutdown, the authorities dispatched gendarmes half an hour later to regain control of the control room, and then issued a prefectoral decree requisitioning the employees needed to get the thermal power plant back up and running, which took several days. On the street side, given that the blackout was set to last, the prefect also decreed a curfew (7pm-6am) for the night of the 25th to the 26th throughout Guadeloupe, then in 11 communes for the following two nights (10pm-5am): Abymes, Baie-Mahault, Basse-Terre, Gosier, Lamentin, Le Moule, Morne-à-l’Eau, Pointe-à-Pitre, Petit-Canal, Sainte-Anne and Sainte-Rose… to ensure that no one takes advantage of the blackout to carry out property transfers or targeted destruction. Officially “to limit the movement of people who might take advantage of the lack of light to damage property…”.
Which, of course, is exactly what happened! So, let’s take a non-exhaustive look at what happened in Guadeloupe when alarms, cameras, street lamps, neon lights and cell phone masts were suddenly deprived of juice…
Looting and backhoeing
In just a few hours on the night of October 25-26, eleven businesses were looted in the Pointe-à-Pitre and Abymes area. These included a supermarket, a bank and three jewelry stores.
What’s more, a backhoe was used against the jewelry stores to break their iron curtains, as well as against a Bred cash dispenser, which was literally ripped off the front of the building thanks to the skilful work of the masked driver of the machine…
Flaming barricades and retaliation
Flaming barricades were also erected in Pointe-à-Pitre, Les Abymes, Baie-Mahault, Le Lamentin, Le Moule, Morne-à-L’Eau and Sainte-Anne, in order to break the state monopoly of territorial control, but also to “facilitate the destruction”, according to Harry Durimel, mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre: “It’s the same method of creating places of attraction for the forces of law and order when they act elsewhere”. And when the latter try to intervene, the rioters have plenty to answer with, according to the official report from the Guadeloupe prefecture, which states, for example, that between 2.45 a.m. and 3 a.m. in the Pointe-à-Pitre area, police forces were fired on three times with live ammunition against the territorial security brigade and the RAID.
In all, the fire department was called out to extinguish 27 dumpster fires and 6 burning vehicles.
Destruction of school buildings
In the Baie-Mahault commune, the first night of the blackout saw more attacks and ransacking of schools than businesses. In addition to the Cora Mayeko, Merosier Narbal and Edinval schools, which were visited by the rioters to express their appreciation, it was the Collège de Gourdeliane in particular that bore the brunt of the blackout: after a thorough ransacking, high flames engulfed a large part of the college’s administration building, including the principal’s office, which went up in smoke. The preschool was also ransacked, with the headmistress’ office and the kindergarten across the street completely destroyed. On the second night of the blackout, a jewelry, perfume and handbag store in the commune was also attacked with an angle grinder.
In terms of repression, the first sentence handed down on Monday October 28 was 18 months in prison, six months suspended, for looting a telephone store in Pointe-à-Pitre, with “an obligation to reimburse the civil parties, an obligation to work” and placement “under an electronic bracelet, as the Basse-Terre prison is 245% overcrowded”. In addition, concerning the voluntary origin of the blackout itself, the management of EDF Guadeloupe has lodged a complaint against several employees for “endangering others, sabotage and destruction of public utility property”. The investigation has been entrusted to the Pointe-à-Pitre Research Unit (S.R.).
As for the looting of jewelry stores, supermarkets and banks, as well as the burning of schools, several investigations have also been opened… with the paradox that while the blackout had blinded the city’s video surveillance cameras, some of the protagonists and their friends were still willing to freely provide images of the looting to the investigators on social media networks…
* Guadeloupe, an archipelago in the middle of the Caribbean, is a non-interconnected zone, which means that it has to generate its own electricity to meet demand in the territory. Nearly 70% of its electricity production relies on thermal energy: fuel oil for EDF and wood pellets for Albioma, which was still running on coal until July. The stoppage of power plant engines by the strikers has led to an imbalance between electricity supply and demand, forcing the grid operator, EDF Archipel, to shut down the entire island to prevent irreparable damage to equipment.
[Local press summary, October 25-28, 2024]
Translated by Act For Freedom Now
Guadeloupe: seizing the opportunity of a blackout…, island in the southern Caribbean Sea