■ Anger about vac­cine man­date for health work­ers on the French Caribbean arch­i­pel­ago has led to days of vi­o­lent protests ■

SOURCE: Al Jazeera & var­i­ous news agen­cies

(AL JAZEERA) — Anger about a vac­cine man­date in the French over­seas ter­ri­to­ry of Guade­loupe has cre­at­ed an “ex­plo­sive” sit­u­a­tion, Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron has said.

A gen­er­al strike called by trade unions has en­tered its sec­ond week fol­low­ing nights of loot­ing and vi­o­lent protests against coro­n­avirus mea­sures im­posed by Paris, in­clud­ing health pass rules and manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions for health work­ers.

Macron’s prime min­is­ter and law­mak­ers from the Caribbean arch­i­pel­ago will hold cri­sis talks in Paris on Mon­day.

Home to rough­ly 400,000 res­i­dents, po­lice in Guade­loupe ar­rest­ed 38 peo­ple overnight on Sun­day af­ter cur­few vi­o­la­tors loot­ed and torched shops and phar­ma­cies.

“We just don’t know how far this will still go,” the may­or of Point-a-Pitre, Guade­loupe’s main city, told France In­fo ra­dio.

French me­dia re­port­ed on Sun­day that ri­ot­ers had bro­ken in­to an arms de­pot in Pointe-a-Pitre and tak­en ri­fles.

Guade­loupe has been hit by vi­o­lent protests be­fore, the may­or said, but there are “big wor­ries” on the is­land now be­cause ri­ot­ers had guns.

Of­fi­cials in Guade­loupe said pro­test­ers had fired on se­cu­ri­ty forces and fire­fight­ers, adding that “or­gan­ised gangs” have now joined the un­rest.

The city was large­ly qui­et on Mon­day with schools closed and bar­ri­cades in the streets as most shops re­main shut­tered.

France has de­ployed 200 ex­tra po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing elite com­man­dos, to Guade­loupe to quell the un­rest.

A dusk-to-dawn cur­few from 6:00 pm to 5:00 am lo­cal time (2200 – 0900 GMT) is cur­rent­ly set to last un­til Tues­day.

Anger about vac­cine man­dates and coro­n­avirus re­stric­tions has led to broad­er ques­tions about the arch­i­pel­ago’s re­la­tion­ship with Paris.

Dur­ing the week­end, Guade­loupe’s main trade union, the UGTG, called for con­tin­ued protests.

While the demon­stra­tions were start­ed by the vac­cine man­date, they al­so ex­press “the depth of suf­fer­ing, in­equal­i­ty, pover­ty and ex­clu­sion felt by the peo­ple, no­tably youths and the el­der­ly,” said UGTG Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Maite Hu­bert M’Toumo.

Macron ac­knowl­edged the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion and urged lo­cal politi­cians not to mix is­sues re­lat­ed to coro­n­avirus rules with colo­nial-era griev­ances and long­stand­ing com­plaints the ter­ri­to­ry is eco­nom­i­cal­ly ne­glect­ed by Paris.

“We will not give in to lies, dis­tort­ing of in­for­ma­tion and the ex­ploita­tion by some peo­ple of this sit­u­a­tion,” Macron said dur­ing a vis­it to north­ern France on Mon­day, call­ing the sit­u­a­tion “very ex­plo­sive”.

“We do not play with health and we will not let the health of the French be played with for the sake of po­lit­i­cal in­fight­ing,” he added. “We must ex­plain, ex­plain, ex­plain and con­vince, con­vince, con­vince, be­cause one must not play around with the peo­ples’ health.”

Vac­ci­na­tion rates in France’s over­seas ter­ri­to­ries, in the Caribbean, In­di­an Ocean and the Pa­cif­ic, have gen­er­al­ly been far low­er than those on the main­land and there has been re­peat­ed un­rest about an­ti-virus mea­sures.

In the neigh­bour­ing French over­seas ter­ri­to­ry of Mar­tinique, lo­cat­ed about 190km (118 miles) south of Guade­loupe, a gen­er­al strike has been called for Mon­day. Union lead­ers are call­ing for an end to oblig­a­tory vac­ci­na­tions for health work­ers. They are al­so demon­strat­ing in favour of wage ris­es and is­sues.