the costing of the disaster, between actuality and exploitation | EUROtoday

The first steps of the Minister chargeable for abroad territories, François-Noël Buffet, on Caledonian soil for a marathon four-day go to, Wednesday October 16, made it potential to measure the expectations of New Caledonian elected officers vis-à-vis the State . Since the beginning of the disaster which started on May 13, they’ve put ahead quite a few figures, by way of unemployment, materials harm and even the departure of residents. If they mirror a vital financial and social state of affairs, they’ve additionally change into political objects with a number of points, beginning with the sizing of the help requested from the State.

“Depending on who is speaking, the evaluations sometimes go from single to double. At some point, you have to know what you’re talking about in order to be able to objectify your speech, particularly on employment issues.”underlines Véronique Ujicas, head of the economic department of the Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (ISEE) of New Caledonia, who published a dashboard of major indicators on October 7.

The issue of unemployment directly concerns the State since it finances a significant part of the compensation. The leader of the loyalists Sonia Backès has repeatedly mentioned an unemployment rate reaching 50%. The reality measured by the ISEE instead gives 6,000 jobs destroyed out of the approximately 67,000 that the private sector had before the crisis. It is appropriate to add partial unemployment, which concerns 29% of the salaried workforce, which led Philippe Gomès, leader of the Calédonie ensemble party (moderate non-independence right), to say that “24,500 employees are deprived of jobs”.

“Witch hunt”

“We need to take a step back from the figures”concedes a member of the Caledonian Medef who prefers to remain anonymous. “ There is of course instrumentalization, it’s the game for those who want more money”. This business leader, affected like many others, wants to be less catastrophic and puts forward an assessment of the drop in overall consumption, of the order of 15%. According to him, in addition, recent figures would estimate the amount of destruction at 1.5 billion euros, rather than the 2 billion currently estimated.

In this context, the second union within the nation, the Trade Union of Kanak and Exploited Workers (USTKE), with a pro-independence sensibility, is warning of discrimination suffered by a few of its members in a number of corporations. And denounces, because the disaster, “a witch hunt under the cover of the catastrophic situation”.

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