Recent Developments in the French Antilles: The Political-Institutional Debate and the Difficult Reconciliation of Conflicting Aspirations

• Author: Justin Daniel
• Pages: 61-83

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- RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FRENCH ANTILLES -

Recent Developments in the

French Antilles:

The Political-Institutional Debate and the

Difficult Reconciliation of

Conflicting Aspirations

JUSTIN DANIEL

Beyond the criticism and apprehension generated in mainland

France, and throughout the French Overseas Départements or DOMs,

the second phase of the devolution process launched in 2003 reveals,

under the magnifying effects of a prism, the ambivalent nature of the

attitude of West Indian elected representatives. Echoing the expectations

of the populations which play alternatively – or simultaneously – on

several levels of identification, the responding strategies they have been

deploying since the end of the 1990s in both Guadeloupe and

Martinique claim to reconcile, at times contradictory, desires within a

legal-institutional framework: striving toward universalist notions (the

republican egalitarian principle), taking into consideration regional

idiosyncrasies (cultural identity) and preserving 'acquired rights', some

of which serve a purely instrumental process. Most certainly, this

observation is nothing very original: from a certain point of view, the

history of the French West Indies is more or less summarised by an

incessant back-and-forth movement between these various categories

of demands – or their sporadic coexistence – in any case reflected in an

unsteady balance founded on a double system of allegiance to universal

and specific norms. But the heightening of identity claims observed

over recent years tends to modify this balance and question the old

Départment system, which still continues to work on the collective

imagination of the citizens of the French Antilles, complicating the

perception of what is at issue. In such a context, not only does the

political translation of the expectations expressed by the Antillean public

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appear to be more and more problematic, but also the message delivered

by elected representatives themselves seems blurred, with these two

tendencies mutually supporting one another. All the more so, as the

political choices are strongly conditioned by the persistence of a more

and more divided political scene, an overall weakening of supporter

organisations and the struggle for political leadership on both islands,

interfering in political and party-oriented choices (Daniel, 2002).

This chapter analyses the attitude of Martinican and Guadeloupean

elected officials confronted with the process of institutional change

and status reform initiated by the implementation of the December

13, 2000 Overseas Orientation Law (LOOM), and pursued through

Act II of the devolution process and the December 7, 2003 local

referenda. The chapter draws attention to some of the reasons that led

to the failure of the vote and the Antillean populations disowning of

their policymakers. We do know that renewing and amplifying a

grievance that has persisted over several decades, the populations

primarily expressed being in favour of creating a single territorial

institution to replace the Département (General Council elected

assembly) and the Région (Regional Council elected assembly),

endowed with increased powers and competence.

This attitude, on behalf of the elected representatives as well as the

public, cannot be understood in all its complexity without being

resituated in a broader historic context. Following the abolition of slavery,

attempts to establish a fully functioning form of citizenship were

frustrated and remained incomplete. As a consequence there are now

contradictory aspirations on the part of the populace, which can cause

ruptures in the politico-institutional system.

Once this experience of unfulfilled citizenship and its corollary – a

shift towards a form of 'sovereignised' identity – is considered within

the context of republican equality, discussions turn more specifically

to strategies deployed around the attempted reform of December 7,

2003, and more broadly within the framework of locally implemented

public policies. They rely on a body of texts drawn from debates during

the period at issue (1998–2003) and the careful examination of

supporter stances in highlighting locally mobilised strategies. In

particular, emphasis is placed on factors leading to the failure of the

December 7, 2003 referenda, especially the voluntarily ambiguous

attitude and discourse of numerous elected officials and the