The territorial community of Martinique adopted on February 2 the flag of independence activists, whose colors echo the Pan-African movement: red symbolizes the blood of Afro-descendants; the black, the people of the same name; green, African nature.
That the inhabitants of a French department identify with an international movement born in New York in 1920 rather than with the tricolor flag is as disturbing as the score of Marine Le Pen in the presidential election, which came first in eight overseas territories. .
However, the West Indians have always been among the most attached to the idea of the Republic. And for good reason: the Republic abolished slavery twice, in 1789 and 1848. In Vichy in the Tropics (2009), the historian Eric Jennings showed that the French of the Caribbean had joined Free France in greater proportions than those of France. In gratitude, de Gaulle in 1946 granted the status of department to the four “old” colonies – attached to France under Louis XIII.
New century, new paradigm. In 2009, the powerful Guadeloupean social movement against “profitasion” (the excessive profits of a few white families in a situation of oligopoly) remained without a satisfactory response. In January 2023, the dismissal of the case in the extremely serious case of poisoning with chlordecone hardly aroused a stir in Paris. Meanwhile, the French elites have never found the right tone on the subject of memory issues, which remain significant. Between France and Fort-de-France, the line is blurred.