A-Infos (en) France, UCL Press Release - Chlordecone Law: Far from the Necessary Reparations! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On June 2, 2026, Parliament adopted a law in which the French State 
"acknowledges its share of responsibility" for the chlordecone 
contamination of Guadeloupe and Martinique, "commits to working towards 
the decontamination of the land," and sets itself the "objective" of 
compensating victims (without making it an obligation). --- A pesticide 
used in the French West Indies since 1972, chlordecone remained legal 
until 1993 and was then used illegally until 2000, despite having been 
recognized as dangerous and banned in the United States as early as 
1976. In mainland France, this pesticide was banned in 1990. This 
blatant double standard illustrates the perception of life in 
non-Western territories. After decades of inaction, obstacles to 
research, and repression by the French state, 90% of the population of 
Martinique and Guadeloupe is now contaminated, causing, among other 
things, cancers, endometriosis, and decreased fertility. The land itself 
is contaminated for over 600 years, making cultivation unsafe.

This contamination is not only an ecological scandal, but it is also 
part of a colonial dynamic: Guadeloupe and Martinique, like other 
overseas territories, are subject to an extractivist logic, where 
intensive farming and resource exploitation come at the expense of the 
environment and the inhabitants. Faced with the profits of the large 
Béké landowners[1]who have controlled the islands' economy for 
centuries, the lives of the Black people who live there are considered 
worth very little. As Guadeloupe MP Élie Califer points out, "if such 
poisoning had affected 90% of the population of Creuse, Brittany, or 
Île-de-France, the State's responsibility would have been acknowledged 
long ago."

This law remains a step forward, made possible by the struggle of 
numerous residents and groups in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and mainland 
France. However, in this watered-down version of the law, the State only 
acknowledges a "share of responsibility" in this scandal and completely 
ignores the responsibility of the individuals and companies who profited 
from the poisoning of the two islands. It denies any compensation for 
the anxiety suffered by residents who can no longer feed themselves from 
their land and live in fear of disease. The State refuses to set clear 
objectives for pollution cleanup and remediation, and thus there is no 
formal commitment to compensate the residents. It is also important to 
mention the dismissal of the case on June 22nd, which closed the 
judicial inquiry and the investigation, thus preventing the 
identification of those responsible for this scandal.

It is worth recalling that during the abolition of slavery, when the 
question arose of compensating the white landowners (békés) who had 
owned the slaves and from whom the profiteers of this environmental 
scandal originated, the French state did not simply set "objectives" but 
gave them enough money to consolidate their economic control over the 
islands, a control that persists to this day. We cannot expect a 
capitalist and neocolonial state to redress its own injustices on its 
own. The solution, as the people of the French Antilles know, lies in 
the struggle for genuine reparations, for decontamination and guaranteed 
food sovereignty, but also for an end to metropolitan domination, for 
the expropriation of the Béké landowners, and for the liberation of 
Guadeloupe and Martinique, as with all the colonies.

Reparations, freedom, and self-determination for the French Antilles!

Libertarian Communist Union, July 17, 2026.

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[1]The Békés are the descendants of the slave-owning colonists in the 
Antilles. They still maintain a strong hold on the Antillean 
territories, particularly through economic and land domination.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Loi-chlordecone-bien-loin-des-reparations-necessaires
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