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PARIS-Rioters manning barricades fatally shot a man returning home from protests in Guadeloupe, a French government minister said Wednesday—the first death in unrest that has convulsed France's Caribbean islands for weeks.The death could mark a turning point in tensions that have spread to the nearby French island of Martinique and deeply worried the central government in Paris, which called a special meeting Wednesday to discuss security on the islands."Guadeloupe is nearly exploding," said the leader of the protest movement there Elie Domota."I think the malaise is deeper than we could imagine."Domota, on France-Info radio, joined the government in calling for calm.Paris has refused to budge on strikers' demands for higher pay, despite nearly four weeks of work stoppages and demonstrations for lower prices and better pay have shuttered stores and schools and frozen daily life on Guadeloupe—an integral part of France. Business leaders in Martinique agreed Tuesday to a 20 percent price cut on most supermarket products, despite initial refusal.Strikers demand a euro200 ($250) monthly raise for low-paid workers who now make roughly euro900 ($1,130) a month."I am ashamed," said Victorin Lurel, the president of the Guadeloupe regional council. "I hear a land that is crying, a land that is ablaze and bloody. I am still hearing this same lack of responsibility, as if obtaining euro200 were worth bringing the country to its knees," he said on France-Info.In Paris, the government minister for overseas territories, Yves Jego, said the protester slain on Guadeloupe was "assassinated by rioters."The dead man, tax agent and union member Jacques Bino, was shot and killed in a housing project in Pointe-a-Pitre, said Nicolas Desforges, the top appointed official on the island.Police and emergency workers were summoned to help a man wounded in his car around midnight (0400 GMT), but could not reach him because they were being shot at by rioters with hunting rifles, Desforges said by telephone. By the time police arrived at the scene three hours later, Bino was dead at the wheel.Three police officers were injured in the overnight violence, one by a gunshot to the eye, Desforges said.About 450,000 people live on Guadeloupe, a verdant hilly island with white-sand beaches.Thousands of tourists have fled or canceled holidays on the normally tranquil island, prompting many hotels to close and cruise ships to head elsewhere.Behind much of the unrest in Guadeloupe and Martinique is resentment by Afro-Caribbeans, many of whom are descendants of slaves, that the vast majority of wealth and land is in the hands of offspring of colonists.Protest leader Domota said the violence was prompted by police, and he accused them of harassing protesters with racist insults."Thousands and thousands of Guadeloupeans have taken to the streets for a month to alert the state, alert elected officials, alert business owners about the social situation," he said on France-Info radio."It's distressing that every time there are problems on Guadeloupe, there needs to be a death to find solutions," he said.French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to meet with officials from the overseas territories Thursday. "The president is very attentive" to what is happening in Guadeloupe and the government is mobilized to help, government spokesman Luc Chatel said.Desforges said it remained unclear whether the airport, severely disrupted in recent days because personnel could not get to work, would reopen Wednesday.Associated Press writer Laurent Pirot in Paris contributed to this report.
By CLAIRE FRIEDELAssociated Press Writer
As in the days of Noah...
