It is now time to call a spade a spade. The high cost of living in Martinique and the overseas territories is neither an accident nor an unforeseeable market distortion, nor—to a marginal extent—an inevitable consequence of insularity. It is the direct result of deliberate political choices made by the French government, carried out or tolerated by successive local administrations. The rest—belated outcries, bellicose statements, and the singling out of a private scapegoat—is all just for show.
For the past twenty years, Bercy has known.
Price disparities are documented by INSEE, IEDOM, and the Court of Auditors. The mechanisms of logistics rent, commercial concentration, and vertical integration have been clearly identified. Successive ministers for overseas territories—from Marie-Luce Penchard to Annick Girardin, from Sébastien Lecornu to Philippe Vigier, right up to Manuel Valls’s more recent statements—have all publicly acknowledged the scale of the problem. None of them has undertaken structural reforms commensurate with the challenge.
For its part, the Ministry of the Economy has applied competition law designed for mainland markets to the overseas territories, while refusing to draw the necessary operational conclusions.
The Competition Authority is slow to act, lacks a permanent regional presence, has no specific resources, and lacks a long-term strategy. The Price, Margin, and Revenue Monitoring Bodies have been confined to an advisory role, deprived of any binding authority. This is not a technical shortcoming—it is a political choice.
Commercial urban planning has been allowed to go off track.
In Martinique, as elsewhere, permits have been granted without a holistic view, leading to a proliferation of large-scale importers at the expense of an already fragile local production base. Local officials have too often prioritized the immediate promise of jobs and short-term tax revenue, without assessing the long-term systemic effects on competition, prices, and dependence.
At the same time, the government has maintained a heavy and complex system of indirect taxation
– port taxes, VAT, and specific taxes – all while refusing to take political responsibility for a major reform, preferring opaque budgetary offsets to a clear overhaul of the model. Once again, everyone knew. No one was willing to step in and settle the matter.
When social discontent erupted—notably in 2009 and again in 2024—the government responded with rhetoric. Today, it responds by taking the issue to court.
It is only natural that violations should be prosecuted. But to suggest that the justice system will resolve what the political system has refused to address is a grave act of irresponsibility. Even if abuses were proven, the system that allowed them to occur would remain intact.
The truth is simple: the French government has accepted that the overseas territories will continue to operate on a dependent economy in the long term.
because it was easier to manage and less politically costly than structural reform. He preferred apparent stability to real equality. He tolerated situations that he would never have accepted in France.
In this case, the dominant economic groups have simply taken rational advantage of a permissive regulatory framework. The primary responsibility lies with those who write the rules and enforce them—or choose not to. It is not companies that set competition policy; it is the government.
The question, then, is not whether a particular group «has it all.» The answer is simple: if the Bernard Hayot Group holds such a large market share in various sectors of the economy—in the overseas territories, in mainland France, and internationally—it is because it seizes the opportunities offered by the economic, fiscal, and social conditions of the various territories. In a capitalist system, the role of the entrepreneur is to capitalize on a given situation to create jobs, keep the economy moving, and pay taxes.
The real question is why the Republic has allowed this situation to continue for so long, and why it is now pretending to be surprised by the consequences of its own concessions.
By persistently refusing to acknowledge this responsibility, the government is fueling precisely what it claims to be fighting: mistrust, radicalization, and the temptation to resort to extreme solutions. For when the state abdicates its regulatory role, anger becomes a substitute for politics.
There is still time to change course. But that requires something the overseas territories have been waiting for far too long: political courage—not scapegoats thrown to the wolves to placate our demands.
Gérard Dorwling-Carter
