During the night from Saturday to Sunday, Martinique was the object of “intolerable and deeply shocking behavior” in the words of the prefect Jean-Christophe Bouvier. Six war memorials were indeed vandalized on the eve of the commemorative ceremony of the appeal of June 18.
The Fort-de-France war memorial has been covered in red paint. Five other steles were also the target of red paint jets in several municipalities in the south of the island, said the state representative.
An “insult to the memory of Martiniquaises and Martiniquais”
“These acts constitute an insult to the memory of Martiniquaises and Martiniquais who have chosen dissidence to defend their freedom and that of their fellow human beings,” said Jean-Christophe Bouvier. “These fighters braved death for freedom. I don’t know if young people today know that, ”said the 1st in Martinique, Lucien Ignace, 97, a veteran who attended the commemorations of the call of June 18, 1940. The ceremony was all the same unfolded in front of the monument to the soiled death of the Savannah in Fort-de-France, reported the local media.
Investigators from the Gendarmerie’s research section have been tasked with identifying the perpetrators of the damage committed in the communes of Ducos, Rivière-Pilote, Rivière-Salée, Trois-Ilets and Sainte-Luce. The investigations were entrusted to the national police for the acts of vandalism in Fort-de-France. In 18 months, around twenty acts of degradation and destruction on war memorials have been observed in Martinique.