This Friday, October 25, EDF announced a widespread power cut across Guadeloupe, attributed to a “generalized electrical incident”.

Since 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. in mainland France), the overseas territory has been plunged into darkness, and the duration of the outage remains undetermined.

According to La 1ère, the engines at the Pointe Jarry power station have been stopped, as a direct consequence of a strike that has been going on for several weeks. The energy branch of the CGT union is engaged in a tug-of-war with the management of EDF Production Électrique Insulaire (PEI), with no end in sight for the time being.

A source within the grid operator told Agence France Presse: “We don’t know how long the restart will take.” This social conflict, which began on September 15, is centered on the implementation of an agreement signed at the end of a strike in 2023. The agreement concerned, among other things, the appointment of temporary staff and the payment of five years’ back pay.

Despite a new agreement proposed by EDF PEI last Monday, the Guadeloupe CGT rejected the text due to a persistent disagreement over the calculation of paid leave.