ISLAND IN THE SUN PROBLEMS OF BEING FRENCH AND COLOUR IN MARTINIQUE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34031, 20 December 1975, Page 14

ISLAND IN THE SUN PROBLEMS OF BEING FRENCH AND COLOUR IN MARTINIQUE

<By HENRY HOWARD, in Fort de France. Martinique, for the Observer Foreign News Service) Sit in one of the cafes on the Rue de la Liberte, overlooking; the green Savane, sip your Pernod, and watch the passers-by. These are mainly vivacious, attractive coffee-coloured people with a sprinkling of white and black. You might well be in some provincial town in Southern France, instead of in Fort de France. Martinique. After all, Martinique, unlike British. American and Dutch Caribbean possessions, is a part of France. It is one of the three Western Hemisphere Departments d’Outre-Mer, the other two being Guadeloure and Guyane. Yet underneath the atmosphere of typical Gallic gaiety, of bustle and insouciance, lie dangerous tensions that are more Caribbean than French.

When Martinique became a department of France in 1946, it seemed that its main troubles were over. Martinicians were now Frenchmen and black or white, if unemployed at home could almost certainly find work in France. All the social benefits of a welfare state were automatically extended by Paris to Martinique (population 350,000 approximately) on the same scale, for instance, as that for the Department of the Gironde (population more than one million). And France, unwilling to allow the tricolour to float over a poor-house, pumped money into the island for public works, buildings, roads, an airport, etc. Now nearly 50 per cent of all salaries in the island are paid by the Government in Paris.

I Then, too, Aime Cesaire, I Martinique’s remarkable black poet-politician, left the I Communist Party in 1956 in ’protest against the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian , | uprising and formed his own I Progressive Party of 'Martinique (P.P.M.). His I party, although far left, is by no means revolutionary. Aime Cesaire has no use for independence. He wants greater autonomy for Martinique. with Martinicians governing themselves, enjoying all the privileges of French citizenship but with France footing the bill. Cesaire, a good poet, is not devoid of logic or of an understanding of his people’s needs. In the sixties the island seemed set for a rosier future than most of its Caribbean sisters. And yet currents of tension' persist. First, economic: Martinique’s standard of living is one of the highest in the Caribbean, but the cost of living is frightening — worse than Paris. The per capita annual income is about $lOOO, but Government spending probably accounts for 55 per cent of the Gross National Product. Fickle tourism Exports in 1973 amounted to only some ssom while imports totalled $222m. Industrialisation has been slow. The largely agricultural economy relies on bananas, sugar cane, rum andj pineapples and suffers, despite present high prices for agricultural products, from competition in low-wage areas in Africa and elsewhere. Tourism is at present the only alternative industry, and Martinique has made tremendous strides in its development recently. In 1970 there were 980 hotel rooms. In 1974 the number reached 1650. Cruise ship visitors rose in the same period from 99.300 to 161,500. But tourism is fickle, as the Caribbean is learning the hard way. and it has suffered a few blows in Martinique recently. Pan American Airways pulled out of the island (and the Caribbean). The Bank of America has closed its local branch and the Martinique Hilton its doors. Doubtless it [will be reopened under French management, but the image of an ever-expanding tourist industry has been roughly halted. Worse, the

investor in tourism will think twice about putting his money into Martinique when high wages and cost of living may drive his operating costs to four times that of nearby St Lucia. I Politically. Martinique is 'subject to stresses which are I not divorced from the racial i pattern. The Bekes (whites) (and the mulatto professional (class, relatively conservative (and relatively rich, vote [Gaullist and for President (Giscard d’Estaing. They have returned two out of three deputies to the National Assembly in Paris and two Gaullist senators. The Communist Party of Martinique failed to get a nominee into the French political arena in the 1973 elections. Black beacon

But the beacon of black, left-wing Martinique is the poet-politician Aime Cesaire. The little man with a brilli,ant mind and compelling eyes is the sole representative in ■the Assembly of his P.P.M. His dual role as Deputy in Paris and Mayor of Fort de (France has brought complaints from the Bekes that he (wisely) spends all his time in Paris, thus avoiding the

unpleasant day-to-day mayoral problems in Fort de France. Problems for an expanding population, more than half of which is under 20 years old. Problems of unemployment, running to some 25 per cent lof the work force. But whichiever way you turn in Martinique. the long shadow of the ■remarkable Aime Cesaire follows you. That is the trouble. If anything happened to Deputy and Mayor Aime Cesaire. people might have to face a political war on racial lines. In Martinique on the whole people get on well with each other — brown, black and white. All recognise a common vested interest in sticking to France whatever the Fourth (Colonial) Committee of the United Nations choses to say about ‘‘colonial” Martinique. But for Aime Cesaire. for his beautiful island and for his attractive and talented people, the problem of that search for an identitv remains. The whites are Frenchmen. So are many mulattos But is there really such a thing as a black Frenchman? —O.F.N.S. Copyright