Budget cuts in education: Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana on the front line

The coming austerity: the French colonies on the front line

As the 2025 finance law approaches, austerity is looming again. A series of anti-social attacks have already been announcedaims to make workers pay for what Bercy likes to call a “public finance crisis”, without touching the pockets of employers. And the French colonies are no exception. The “Overseas” Ministry is also seeing its credits go down : the summit letters sent by Attal to Barnier, which detail the resources allocated to each ministry, announce a reduction of 4% of the budget dedicated to the “Ministry of Colonies”. A new budget cut just a few months after the last one: in the year 2024, pretending to fall in growth projections for France, there is almost 80 million euros that have already been withdrawn from him.

The State and the big leaders also want to make the colonies pay for the crisis by further cutting the spending of the Ministry of Education, who also does not escape from this eleventh level plan of hardship. The Inspector General of Finance (IGF) and the Inspector General for Education, Sports and Research (IGESR) have therefore been asked by the government to work on this new offensive. It comes out inter-ministerial report produced in April 2024 and publicly released on September 4, titled ” Spending review: youth-friendly measures “. His goal: from three ” situations », many « [formalise] demographic expectations and their downward trends in the short and medium term that invite us to question the necessary teaching methods.”. He is accused of ” demographic decline » that the report recommends major budget cuts in education. 1600 classes and 1950 schools could be closed.

Among the most influential academies are those of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana. Three French colonies which, depending on the situation chosen, could be at the forefront of this severe offensive, while the state of the education system in particular has deteriorated : persistent underinvestment, overcrowded classrooms, broken schools, higher levels of out-of-school students… The Guyanese case in particular shows the hypocrisy of the government that declares demographic decline and desertification classes to justify budget cuts in education. Guyana is experiencing, after Mayotte, the most important demographic growth (1.6% per year on average) in France and its colonial territory. according to report from INSEEby 2050, there could be 428,000 inhabitants on the land, thus tending to double the population in almost forty years. The number of students constantly growing but it is said that more than 10,000 children are out of school, mainly because of the lack of places.

The French state creates misery in its colonies

This austerity policy further impoverishes the colonies, which are already suffering record poverty levels : 33% in Martinique, 34% in Guadeloupe, 42% in Reunion, 53% in Guyana, and up to 77% in Mayotte. The levels of extreme poverty (defined by INSEE as a combination of monetary poverty and absolute poverty) are for their own sake. five to five times higher in the “historical regions abroad” than in Francejust like the unemployment rate. Poverty reinforced by a context of high cost of living which the State and large groups impose on the colonies.

The aforementioned austerity policies show the complete indifference of the State to the social conditions of its colonies. While the current movement against the high cost of living in Martinique is once again a reminder, after the mass strikes of 2009, of the fragility of France’s “abroad” influence , the State responds with increasingly harsh offensives. What can we expect, in this context, from social communication with the government and its representatives, when such attacks are being prepared? Maintaining a high cost of living and widespread insecurity in the French colonies, fifteen years after the signing of “end of conflict agreements” that halted the 2009 general strike in the Antillesreminding us that the State has no business and employers keep their promises.

The prefecture of Fort-de-France is already at the second “round table”, that the representatives of the RPPRAC are gone againafter the chief executive refused to make the debate public by broadcasting it live. This past Monday, the Armies united against the high cost of living in 972with the support of the RPPRAC, they sent an open letter to the prefect of Martinique: they announce that they are maintaining the preventive actions on the island ” provided that cost of living discussions are not made public ”, and call for hard to move. If the movement hardens, it must also prepare for the hardening of repression, a classic method of the colonial state when anti-colonial movements shake its imperial interests and the interests of large capitalist groups, as shown by. suffocation in Kanaky. With the hardship that France is trying to impose on its colonies, the urgency is to build a real battle plan with all sections of workers and youth in the French colonies.

With the desire to keep these “negotiations” behind closed doors and due to the austerity plans being prepared, almost hidden, the ruling class is not ready to stop the high cost of living throws people into the streets and starve. thousands of people in colonies reshaped as counter-economies. As a result of the movement in 2009, the methods of class struggle are still the only ones able to stop this deadly leadership, from the moment they set the foundations for the true self-determination of the people. people who are colonized by France.