Tribune. During the first round of the presidential election, the overseas territories overwhelmingly voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon and, in the second round, Marine Le Pen. Sunday, April 24, the result overseas was even exactly the opposite of the overall national result: 58% for the candidate of the National Rally, against 42% for the outgoing president. Has overseas France swung into the extreme right and its struggles against migration, or has it suddenly become “insubordinate”?
The most likely is that our overseas territories have reached a stage in their history where the relationship with the metropolis must be profoundly reformed. The national choices proposed during the French general elections no longer correspond to the aspirations of the French citizens of the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean or South America and to the particular difficulties of these territories.
Foreign politic
The response to the specific problems of regions inserted in an environment very different from the metropolis can now only come from the territories themselves and their inhabitants. Including on subjects considered as sovereign. We could start with issues of security, migration policy or nationality, or even health, but I would like in this short space to mention foreign policy.
It is customary to say that our territories are a chance for France, gateway to Latin America, the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean. The reality, however, is much more mixed. The Quai d’Orsay, by largely leaving control to the overseas ministry for the regional integration of these territories, has partly lost interest in local diplomacy, while the overseas territories focus above all on security issues.
Local elected representatives, for their part, who are legitimate to carry a regional ambition, rightly consider that they do not have the constitutional competence with regard to relations with other States, unless they expressly request, and each time, authorization in Paris.
Above all, the presence of French territories in South America, the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean, despite everything, gives our country in these regions the image of a nation whose clocks remain set to the previous century. These territories today therefore weigh more on our international relations in the area than they serve them.
Four prefects in five years
If the Caribbean Community (Caricom) is so hesitant to accept the West Indies and Guyana as associate members, it is largely because it has the impression that it would bring Paris into this forum rather than Cayenne, Fort -de-France or Pointe-à-Pitre. For the same reasons, France is not a member of the Organization of the Amazonian Cooperation Treaty (OTCA) by the refusal of the other Member States, while its territory covers part of it with Guyana.
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