Martinique’s water woes drive anger at French rule

In Martinique, a French territory in the Caribbean, tourists flock to crystalline waterfalls nestling in the tropical rainforests, but the water that comes out of Chantale Marie-Jeanne’s tap at home runs yellow.

- Layli Foroudi, Reuters

"I don't drink the tap water," she said, outside a supermarket where she was buying locally-bottled Lafort water. A relatively low-cost brand, Lafort is double the price of an equivalent product in parts of Paris. Anger at Martinique's prices and poor services erupted in months of protests and unrest late last year that saw dozens of businesses targeted and burned. The protests have largely given way to a movement that has won concessions from Paris, including a promise last week of governmentbacked legislation to tackle grocery prices, which official data shows are on average 40% higher than on the mainland.