De-Colonization Continues: Guadeloupe Calls for Independence from France

Since having worked for the French Government as an English Assistant in Cayenne, French Guiana in 2006 - 2007, I've been conducting an ongoing (and at present, greatly stalled) project examining the French DOM-TOMs and their prospects from independence from France. Essentially, the DOM-TOMs (Domaines d'outre mer and territoires d'outre mer) are various islands (and in the case of French Guiana, mainland territories) that are bits of the former French empire that have yet to be officially de-colonized.  They may be said to be analogous to Alaska and Hawai'i - non-contiguous extensions of a more powerful central state.  

The resemblance to colonies of days gone by should not go unnoticed. Inequity in French Guiana is highly drawn along racial lines, with the Creole, Hmong and indigenous Amer-Indian populations living on a fraction of the resources enjoyed by the ever-rotating cadre of French civil servants (highly reminiscent of former French colonial bureaucracy) that rotate in and out every few years.  The call today by Guadeloupe's Communist Party (GCP) to support its independence from France is a highly heartening step in the right direction, as were the 2008 protests that took place in another French Caribbean DOM-TOM, Martinique.  The move for self-determination for these neo-colonies is a highly important step in achieving a de-colonization process largely (and incorrectly) assumed to be complete.