ABSTRACT
In September 2021, a mandate requiring that all health care workers be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 or face suspension without pay went into effect in mainland France. A delayed implementation date was set for Guadeloupe and Martinique, in recognition of the challenges the law would pose for these departments, where low vaccination rates and the potential for personnel suspensions would put dangerous pressure on health care systems at a moment when infections rates were high. While the mandate and the suspensions that ensued sparked protests across France, resistance in the Antilles was particularly intense, particularly in Guadeloupe, where protests at the picket lines around the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Pointe-à-Pitre disrupted patient care and turned to physical attacks on hospital personnel. This chapter explores the social and political specificities of the Guadeloupean context in which this anti-mandate movement developed, with an eye in particular for the ways in which anti-colonial activism has shaped anti-vaccination sentiment and violence, adherence to conspiracy theories, and counter-protests against both at once.
