Dear Editor,
Since the State of France discovered the island with the 1986 Law of Defiscalization, Saint-Martin has been rapidly going down the drain. The entire island was baptized the “Friendly island” by the first tourists visiting here during the 1960s. “Friendly,” because the islanders were hospitable and pleasant.
Taxi drivers, then, were the first contact of the tourists with the islanders, immediately after the two immigration officers at the Base, as the old airport terminal was called. The taxi drivers were the true ambassadors of the island: they introduced the tourists to their lifestyle and the island’s natural beauty and guided them within the population during their stay.
It was an upscale, family-oriented and personalized tourism, which reached its glorious moments in the 1970s. Competition between “Dutch side and French side” was unthinkable on our borderless island. On the contrary, a candid desire to live happily together and to share this joy of living with the visitors made us all happy. It was contagious.
That is how it was before Defiscalization. Unemployment, delinquency, total dependency on aid, family allowances, and insecurity were inexistent. The islanders had two or three jobs enabling them to meet the needs of their households. The tradition of “jollification” created the link of solidarity within all the villages.
Having suffered from the success of tourism and the paradise-like atmosphere it offered, the island attracted promoters and investors, and everything turned upside down for the islanders in the North. The French State got interested in the French side and decided to develop it in view of competing with the Dutch side, as it could not stand such economic pre-eminence.
At that time the Dutch side had some 4,000 hotel rooms. The State then poured in “defisc money,” which even spilled over on the Dutch side in some cases, because the French side had to catch up with the 20 years advance of the Dutch side. From 500 rooms in 1985 the French side increased its capacity to 3,566 rooms in 1989; afterwards, year after year, tourism on the French side experienced a constant decrease. What a mistake!
The French European advisors of the mayor in office, a building contractor/BusinessmaniEnglish-speaking, whispered to him that he needs to grasp the opportunity of this law to catch up with this advance of the Dutch side in 5 years (1986-1991), although the infamous “Pons Law” lasted 10 years. And that is exactly what happened.
Illegal immigration was allowed in for the building of the hotels, it was exploited to the maximum and even counted in the 1990 census, as the announced population figure of 28,524 inhabitants shook off their feet all concerned Saint-Martiners in the North, whereas the previous1982 census counted a normal 8,072. The mayor was satisfied because its advisors whispered to him again that the overall State contribution to the Commune budget, calculated on population figures, is going to triple.
Daniella Jeffry
