TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Strike Problems on the French Side

DAILY HERALD ARTICLE

Not an area I would want to be around.

Thanks for posting this. Sounds like the onus is on the Collectivite, and the need to reexamine their budget. This appears to be centered in Marigot, so visitors traveling to the market, etc., they may want to make a mental note of this. Protests like this can start calm but can get ugly fast, so it may be wise to keep an eye on this situation. We were in Mexico a few years back when the taxi drivers in Quintana Roo went of strike and began to protest the emergence of Uber in their area. It never got out-of-hand, but it's never a good idea to get in the middle of domestic issues when on vacation.

French news is harder to understand but I think this is a teacher's strike and the French move so slowly when it comes to budgets and negotiations. To add to the anger the French Collective is asking all property owners to show a cadastrial (deed) to their property before new permits are issued for rebuilding in the new spatial building plan. I see a TAX hike for the French side coming soon!

Yes, it's definitely a teacher's strike.

Those Gendarmes sure look HOT!

Thank you for clarifying this. So, this is not necessarily restricted to Marigot City, but possibly to all of French St. Martin? I'm curious if it even involves the other islands of the French Caribbean such as St. Barthelemy, Martinique and Guadeloupe? Can't see this having much of an impact on tourism, however.

There have been instances in the past when protests caused roads to be blocked and impacted travel and tourists getting to the airport.

and tourists getting to their cruise ships.

Wendell

Correct. Wasn't there a major protest/blockage near the entrance of Orient Beach a few years ago?

Reread the article and looking into it further the 16 out of 75 public employees did not sign their new contracts in a timely manner to qualify for a permanent contract. They were former employees but their contracts ran out and the budget is very small to bring back all former employees. The school tax where I live is 20k per property owner on average. Nobody likes higher taxes and no one likes unemployment.

A teacher's strike is hardly cause for alarm!

Now Haiti would be another matter... https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=cqxxuGQ8QjY

Yeah, they were blocking tour buses. A few years back the French were using payloaders to block traffic also.

Wendell

They look better in their shorts

Was the reference to being dressed in riot gear in the heat?

We rented a car at the cruise port on Wednesday, Feb 6. We were going to Marigot and the rental agent warned us that a demonstration was going on that had blocked the traffic. He had heard this on the radio. It was about 10 am local time. We called our friends in Marigot who told us the demonstration was over. We saw no sings of a demonstration by the time we got to Marigot. Apparently that demonstration was over back pay that was owed to Government workers. The French government had provide the funds to the local government but they had not passed it all down to the employees yet. They must have used the funds for something else. Anyway, I am glad we checked and did not the rental agent. I am not faulting him, he was just going by what he heard.