Tear gas against jets of glass bottles: clashes between Saturday evening in Lamentin, Martinique, police to protesters demanding stricter health checks of all travelers arriving on the island. The national road which adjoins the Aimé-Césaire Lamentin airport was the scene of clashes between the police and dozens of demonstrators who came to demand these checks in the face of the spread of the coronavirus in Europe. Martinique and Guadeloupe are not affected for the moment, but three cases were detected Sunday in Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelémy, which depend on Guadeloupe.
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The demonstrators gathered in the early afternoon at the airport at the call of the CGTM-SOEM union and several associations to demonstrate against the landing of an Air Italia flight from Milan. The flight had been controversial at the beginning of the week because it had to transport passengers coming from a region where the number of cases of coronavirus is in constant increase. These tourists were immediately to embark on a cruise ship. Faced with the call to demonstrate, the cruise line charterer, MSC, finally canceled it. A plane of the Spanish company Vamos came empty on Saturday, with three crew members to recover the Italian passengers returned from cruise.
The protesters demanded strict health checks by the staff before they went to their hotel. The crew finally stayed at the airport before leaving.
“Demonstrators also attacked tourist buses in transit from the airport to the port. Damage to the buses was noted, " added Sunday in a statement the prefecture of Martinique, condemning " blockages, damage and violence at the airport .
