The May 1967 massacre in Guadeloupe: when the security forces opened fire on the crowd
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On 26 and 27 May 1967, in Pointe-à-Pitre, a construction workers’ strike was put down with live ammunition by the security forces. The French State officially acknowledges 8 deaths; according to several historians who have studied the events, the true toll is far higher. 59 years on, Guadeloupeans are still campaigning for truth and justice.
Commemorative mural of the May 1967 massacre on the dockside (La Darse) in Pointe-à-Pitre.
On 24 May 1967, construction workers in Guadeloupe went on strike to obtain a 2.5% pay rise. On 26 May, while negotiations were being held at the Pointe-à-Pitre Chamber of Commerce, a crowd gathered on the Place de la Victoire. At around 3:30 pm, the security forces – CRS riot police and mobile gendarmes – opened fire. Jacques Nestor, an activist with the Groupe d’organisation nationale de la Guadeloupe (GONG), was singled out and killed. Shootings, round-ups, and military repression continued throughout the evening in the streets of Pointe-à-Pitre, and again the following day.
In 2016, the commission chaired by historian Benjamin Stora, appointed by the Ministry for Overseas France, described these events as a “massacre […] knowingly ordered on the ground and approved by the government under the presidency of General de Gaulle”. The official toll established in June 1967 was eight dead, identified by name. An internal document from the prefecture’s research office, unearthed by journalists Xavier-Marie Bonnot and François-Xavier Guillerm, already put the number of dead at twenty-two. In 1985, Georges Lemoine, Secretary of State for the Overseas Departments and Territories (DOM-TOM), publicly put forward the figure of 87 deaths, without documenting its source. Historian Jean-Pierre Sainton wrote in 2023 that the official toll is “far below the reality”. The Stora commission was unable to establish any “indisputable human toll” and noted that the archives had been “compiled from the outset in a way that omitted what had actually happened”.
Fifty-nine years after the events, no judicial inquiry has ever been opened. On 2 August 2023, the association Anmwé 67, the Union générale des travailleurs de Guadeloupe (UGTG) – both members of the Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (LKP) – and victims’ families lodged a criminal complaint as civil parties with the Pointe-à-Pitre prosecutor’s office. The case was transferred to the “crimes against humanity” division of the Paris court. According to the LKP, it was then sent back to Pointe-à-Pitre, where an order was reportedly issued “refusing to open an investigation because the statute of limitations had expired”. The UGTG and Anmwé 67 have also announced they are suing the State for its inaction since 1967.
To mark the 59th anniversary, rallies and commemorations are being organised across Guadeloupe by memorial associations, historians, elected officials, and collectives.
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