The emblem is now known. The territorial community of Martinique (CTM) has adopted the black, green and red flag, claimed by the separatists, to represent the island, after a course strewn with pitfalls. The adoption of this flag which takes up the three pan-African colors was voted on Thursday in plenary session, indicated the CTM on its Twitter account.
Previously there was a so-called “four snakes” flag, a former flag of the merchant navy in the 18th century, associated with the slave trade. Fought by associations and political parties, it was removed in 2018 from the badge worn by the island’s gendarmes, at the request of President Emmanuel Macron.
“A historic moment”
“We are living on this Thursday, February 2, 2023, a historic moment of awareness, surpassing and unity of the Martinican people”, tweeted the president of the executive council of the CTM, Serge Letchimy, at the head of the Martinican Progressive Party founded by Aime Cesaire.
The CTM had relaunched this delicate process at the end of 2022 to provide the Caribbean island with an official emblem in order to represent it at sporting, cultural or international cooperation events. The community had chosen to carry out a consultation open to the inhabitants of the department, but which had been marred by several technical incidents.
At the end of this vote, the proposal of a young entrepreneur had finally won 72% of the 26,633 votes online, facing the independence emblem. Her project, displaying a hummingbird on the red, green and black flag but revisited diagonally, had sparked a lively controversy, her detractors accusing her of having plagiarized an existing drawing on an image bank, pushing the young woman to withdraw her proposal. .
After this withdrawal, the community gave its support to the winner and announced that a new ranking would be established to allow a winner to emerge. This is the second time that the Martinican community has launched a process for the choice of a flag and an anthem.
An “Ipséité” emblem in green, blue and white, designated under the mandate of Alfred Marie-Jeanne in 2019, had been challenged by the administrative court of Fort-de-France in November 2021, thus opening the door to the current consultation.