The French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has been left entirely without power after striking workers seized control of the territory’s power station.
Employees at the power station in the industrial zone of Jarry entered the command room “and caused an emergency shutdown of all the engines”, the Guadeloupe prefecture said in a statement on Friday.
The power cut comes amid a spate of unrest in French overseas territories including the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and New Caledonia in the Pacific, where inhabitants complain that living standards are well below those of mainland France.
Police intervened and the archipelago’s prefect had “requisitioned” staff to bring the station back up to speed, it said.
Marie-Line Bassette, director of EDF, the company that provides Guadeloupe with power, told France Télévisions that it was “irresponsible to go as far as a blackout to deprive all of Guadeloupe of electricity for demands when there are means to manage this type of situation”.
The French government has mobilised “services and operators” to bring power back as soon as possible, said the energy minister, Olga Givernet.
A labour dispute over pay has pitted the energy branch of the CGT union against the EDF utility since 15 September.
Power outages have affected daily life in Jarry, the economic powerhouse of the French territory of close to 380,000 inhabitants, over the past week.
Leon Prosper Jimmy, an ambulance driver in Pointe-à-Pitre, said that taking charge of patients in apartment buildings had become difficult because of non-functioning lifts.
“We have to carry them,” he said, saying he often called the fire brigade or other services for backup. “We manage as best we can,” said the 41-year old.
The CHUG hospital centre said it had activated backup power generators which would keep “critical operations” going for 72 hours.
In a supermarket near the capital, inhabitants were stocking up with bottled water as the territory’s water supply began to be affected.
Many store shelves were empty as supplies were disrupted.
Guadeloupe looks after its own electricity needs, having no interconnection agreements with other countries.
Its power production is 70% thermal, stemming from burning fuel oil or wood pellets.
In Martinique, protesters defied curfews and clashed with police overnight into Friday morning, officials there said, more than a month since demonstrations erupted over rising living costs.
Clashes broke out as police tried to clear protesters’ roadblocks, the Martinique administration said. Crowds also tried to hijack a truck carrying fuel, it added.
The Martinique administration said one person was arrested overnight and many businesses had warned that the protests were having a “catastrophic” impact on the local economy.
