CAN THE COLLECTIVITY ENACT A LAW?

Can the collectivity enact a law? It depends on the law. If it is a law that falls within an area in which the collectivity has no competence, such as nationality, then no, it cannot. Only the state has competence in that area.


However, if it concerns something in which St Martin has full competence, such as traffic, yes, it can.


How did the collectivity acquire this competence? It was conferred by the French Parliament as part of our organic law.


Our organic law devolved from article 74 of the French constitution. We have full competence in the traffic area, therefore the French traffic code as such no longer applies to us. Of course most of the French traffic code will still apply to us, since it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel. For instance, we still drive on the right side of the road, and so as stated, most of the code will always apply to us.


However, we are at a point where have to WORK to create/put together the changes/modifications of this code which will apply only to St. Martin and not to the remainder of the French republic.


We have our own drivers' licences and number plates. We are also the ones responsible for setting fines for traffic infractions. Once a law is enacted setting an amount that will sanction an infraction, the President of the collectivity can order the territorial police to implement this law. However, the President cannot order the gendarmes to do this, since they are employees of the state. The Prefet has to be requested to issue a decree in which state employees are advised to implement the law.


Our reality, which is different from that of St. Barths, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and the rest of the French system for that matter, has no Dutch side like we do, and which has to be taken into account.


Conventions will have to be signed between the two sides of the island regarding any traffic issue or any issue for that matter that concerns them both.


And our specifica situation is also the reason why any time we go to antother French territory, if we want to reside there, we have to adapt our drivers licence and our number plate to that of the French norms. It is also our prerogative to request that other cars from French territories conform to our conditions, should they differ.


The bottom line people, is that we have to go to WORK to set up up our collectivity the way it should be set up. We have to become familiar with our organic law and work to make it benefit us. NOBODY else will do it for us.

MINIMUM WAGE

France has one of the highest minimum wages in the world, and by extension, so does the French side of Saint Martin.


It sounds very nice on paper to say that ALL people need at least X amount of money to maintain their human dignity, yada, yada, yada!!!!


However, in the real world this works out to mean that people who have spent thousands and studied for hundreds of hours to acquire a professionl licence such as lawyer, who are required to work for years in a law office before they can work on their own, will make the same wage as those who work with absolutely no qualifications, and who are in many cases, functionally illiterate. This is simply not faire.


And even though Saint Martin has its own functionally illiterate, guess whoi will get the jobs.


So today there was a proposal from the Medef, which is the largest union of employers in France, so we know in advance that this is a proposal made to benefit employers, whether people would be in favor of a minimum wage below the actual minimum wage, which would allow companies to employ young people.


Think.


Young people fresh out of school lack experience. Is it fair that they should make as much as people who might have been working already for 10 years? French minimum wage applies to everybody! No matter how many years you have studied, how money you have spent to get there, you are not allowed to make more than minimum wage, because by the time you finish paying the government for those who do not contribute, you will hopefully remain with enough money to feed yourself.


This lower minimum wage would allow young people to acquire experience and a salary, albeit lower than the SMIC.


We know in advance again that employers will use it to their advantage but some people would profit from it too.


As stated before, French minimum wage is practically the highest in the world, so even this would be above minimum wage in amny other countries, at least half the world, and definity higher than the Dutch side of Saint Martin.


Food for thought.

AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?

Am I my brother's keeper? And if I am, when, how and where am I to keep him?


There are many countries in the world today from which the people seem nothing short of desperate to flee.That is not normal. Some people always leave their country, but not the majority.


Everybody wants to improve their life, but not do not leave in rickety boats that are definitely not seaworthy, this is desperation pure and simple.


Only the Almighty knows how many people on both sides of the globe lie buries on the bottom of the sea, because they are running away from their country.


So, when am I my brother's keeper? Only when he is in my country, what about when he is in his own country? Why and why not?


How am I my brother's keeper? What do I have to do for him? Take him into my house, feed him, educate him?


Where am I my brother's keeper? All over the world? There is not a country on God's green earth without poor people, which of them do I have to keep and I definitely cannot keep them all.


Having said all that we need an example to work with. If this blog was in Europe I would take North Africa as an example, but since it is in the Caribbean my example will be Haiti.


Before anything else, allow me to make two (2) remarks, one concerning Haiti, and on concerning Saint Martin.


1. Haiti is the poorest island in the Caribbean and likely to remain that way, since everybody seems to want to leave it.


2. Saint Martin is the most densely populated island in the Caribbean, along with being one of the smallest, and close to the breaking point population wise.


So the question is: why has a world body never been established to investigate exactly what is happening in these various countries that is causing their people to run away?


This body would have to be totally apolitical, that can investicate and give suggestions as to what can be done to help these people in their own countries.


Again, if some of the hundreds of thousands of Haitians for instance, spread throughout the world who are now well educated, do not come back to build the country, it can only slip further down, since those who run the country now either cannot or will not do anything to bring it up.


It is total insanity to expect a different result to expect different results from the same people.


As I said at the beginning, in all those countries where people are desperately running, what is being done by the big countries to be their brother's keeper?

DOES THE COLLECTIVITY OWE THE CAF?

As everybody knows Saint Martin is overrun with people coming here to have their children born here in order to collect money from the CAF. These children are then foisted upon the island as Saint Martiners while what they are are "CAF babies". Having said that, there are also Saint Martiners of heritage who purposely produce Caf babies too.


However, the national government of France is reponsible for nationality, that is a competence which only comes with independence. No territory or collectivity possesses that. In other words, St. Martin has to nationality to grant. These people become purely and simply French citizens or nationals.


Now suddenly we read that the CAF wants the Collectivity to pay 35M€ for "debts from 2011 to 2013." Now I want somebody to explain to me the logic behind the reasoning that goes, if we have to continue accepting people coming from all over the world, legally or illegally, where the collectivity is going to get that money from. If it comes to that, I'd like to know where France is eventually going to get the money from.


The French man on the street is getting ready to blow. St. Martiners may be apathetic, inert, or simply a bunch of cowards afraid to demostrate, but French people will definitely take to the streets.


In the last municpial elections last month, the left was already given a warning by the upsurge in popularity of the extreme right and if it is not happen in the upcoming legislative elections, it will happen in the next one. If Matignon isn't stormed before, since the Bastille has already fallen.


The time will come when there will be no money left to take care of their own who cannot care for themselves. Along with that, the French socialist system is set up to kill all ambition.


Change MUST come, both here and in mainland France or the results will not be pretty.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE???

Something seems to have triggered a rash of souvenir pictures and facebook posts of hurricane Luis. Possible the tentative election date on the Dutch side.


Anyway, having looked at pictures and statistics that brought back many not so nice memories, among which was the "official" announcement to the rest of the world, I suppose for the sake of tourism, without which everybody thinks we are nothing, that hurricane Luis only caused 2 deaths on St. Martin


O yes, after blowing at 145 mph for 36 hours, sinking something like 1200 boats in the lagoon, flattening only God knows how many shacks and not-shacks all over the island, watching hilicopters cartin away nobody knows what for weeks on end, if anybody who was here at that time still wants to believe that crap, they need to see a shrink.


Now, a little look further back at another hurricane. Hurricane Donna which was said to be the last "big one" before Luis and which dates back to September 4, 1960. I remember it was said that a 160 mph gust of wind broke the anemometer at Julianba Airport during that storm. That was a healthy gust of wind.


However, for the record, while I, as a teenager, slept through most of Hurricane Donna, that hurricane blew for one night. When I woke up the next morning, everything was over but the cleanup.


As I said before, Luis blew for 36 hours. I closed up my house on Monday everning and on Wednesday morning it took 3 people to open my front door.


Unofficial statistics have given numbers like 800 dead and even that may be a conservative estimate because back in those glory days nobody had a clue how many people resided on St. Martin. Nobody knows how many family members buried other family members in the hills.


If we survive climate change and global warming, archaeologists will have a field day wondering what kinds of settlements we had in those hills, there will be so many skeletons to unearth.


Now, the main point is that no proper statistics will ever be available mostley because the greater part of those "deported" by hurricane Luis were on the island illegally.


Today, 19 years down the line, nobody still knows how many people reside on St. Martin, whether French or Dutch side.


The next hurricane of that category, and from where we sit today, nobody knows when that will be, will be a lawsuit made in heaven against the governments of both sides of the island for not having done what they should have done.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FACTION AND FRACTION

For some time now the media has been referring to fractions of political parties.


They used factions before which is the correct word. My Funk and Wagnalls dictionary defines faction as " a group of people operating within and often in opposition to, a larger group," while it defines fraction, which differs only by the letter R, as a "disconnected part of anything, a small portion, a fragment."


When the media, in particular the Daily Herald, which is the newspaper I read, uses fraction instead of faction, I know it is purposely done, because if I spell organization with a z the way they do in the US, it is automatically edited to an s. So what exactly are they trying to say?


That every other party is but a disconnected part of another party, rather than a group which is in opposition to that larger group?


Is that a slang as we say on Saint Martin?


Words are very important, and should be used appropriately and in the proper manner.


As I have asked many times before, why should the Daily Herald edit any word I spell in the US fashion? Another thing I have said many times is that we not use British English on Saint Martin or St. Maarten for that manner, if the name needs to be spelled in the proper manner, our great exception being the bonnett,of a car.


And if we used to talk of loos and lorries I would have no proble with their editing.


So what are we, and even more important, what do we want to be?


It is definitely going to be easier to express ourselves in US English, thather than the Queen's English, so we should make up our minds.


I will not say it has us confused as a country, because I am sure that the government knows exactly what it wants, and what it will do to the people to get it.