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France Ready To Back Projects That Boost Jobs, Says Jégo

Wednesday: July 23, 2008

(Tahitipresse)

Visiting French Overseas Junior Minister Yves Jégo told striking union leaders following their protest march in downtown Papeete Monday that he was "ready to finance anything producing assets and jobs.”

Replying to the unions' demonstration by an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 followers against Tahiti's high cost of living, Jégo described his closed door meeting later with union leaders.

French “Polynesia has considerable assets: the youth of its population (some 260,000), its present standard of living and its tourist, maritime, and environment assets, which need to be developed," he said.

"I have asked for what would be a strategic blueprint for the development of (French) Polynesia," Jégo told the media he had requested from the union leaders. "We must develop local production."

Prior to Monday's "general strike" and peaceful demonstration march, the unions had predicted they would be joined by some 15,000 marchers sympathetic to their causes. They specifically called for improving the average person's buying power, improving welfare coverage with increased social justice and better protection of local hiring to fill jobs.

However, the unions' cause was not aided by a turnout that amounted to 10 percent to 15 percent of what they had optimistically anticipated or by a "general strike" that was quietly lifted at the end of the day with no results given about its impact.

And during the meeting with Jégo at the French High Commission's Papeete headquarters after the march, the union leaders were told by the visiting French minister, "to have a buying power, one must give work to people. The rise in prices remains the responsibility of the local government, not the state."

But Jégo said it was planned to set up by October a means of observing local prices "to understand and control speculation on certain products.”

He also dealt with the unions' demand that the indexation of salaries and pensions paid overseas not be reformed. Jégo said, "Never have I called for reform of the indexation of salaries of active (French) civil servants" in French Polynesia. "I want to create a cost of living index differential. Today there is no prospect of modifying the indexations."

And once again Jégo emphasized that France is not preparing to pull out of French Polynesia. To back that claim, he noted the state's initial financing of the now nearly completed general hospital in the Taaone area of Tahiti's north coast Commune of Pirae.

He also noted that France had accorded a tax exemption status for an underwater fiber optic telecommunications cable connecting Tahiti with Hawaii at a cost of some €77 million, or 9.9 billion French Pacific francs (US$134 million).

"There is no state pullout. This is not true," said Jégo, who said he intended to further develop a program that allows the people of French Polynesia to serve in the French military under a system specifically adapted to local conditions.

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