The consequences of the social conflict at Albioma are a textbook case of an assimilation policy that is dragging La Réunion Island down the slope of underdevelopment. Albioma is owned by an American pension fund. Its concern is not the development of La Réunion but the profits of shareholders located thousands of kilometres from our country. It is putting pressure on La Réunion’s workers. Strike action is inevitable. It is causing power cuts in La Réunion.
Reunionese who believe they live in a developed country must logically think that these power cuts should never happen. In Western Europe, the annual average duration of power cuts is measured in hours. But La Réunion Island is not France, and in La Réunion, the average duration of power cuts will be counted in days.

Neo-colonialism and assimilation applied to the energy sector

Why is it that a US pension fund can call the shots in a sector as strategic as energy? Because La Réunion is subject to a neo-colonial regime. The aim is to transform public transfers in the form of salaries, public aid to companies and social benefits into profits for private companies, most of which are repatriated to France. The Reunionese must therefore be excluded from ownership of the most important means of production.
Albioma was originally a French company. As a result of capitalism, it came under the US flag. The other major electricity producer is French, EDF. When Reunionese pay ever-increasing bills, the money is transferred from La Réunion to the accounts of these companies outside La Réunion.
The other aspect of this neo-colonialism is the importation of the French energy production system. Although La Réunion is an island with an abundance of renewable energy sources that enable electricity to be produced cheaply on a decentralised basis, the electricity network is still modelled on that of France, with large power stations providing most of the production. What may be valid in Paris is not so here. Assimilation has its limits.
All it takes is for a small number of workers to be forced to go on strike for the basic electricity production tools to be seriously disrupted. The production resources of the French company EDF are not enough to compensate for Albioma’s failure. EDF, which also manages La Reunion’s electricity network, is calling for moderate consumption. This is what La Réunion has come to as a result of assimilation under French neo-colonialism.

Sabotaging the energy autonomy planned for 2025

Yet the Reunionese are capable of innovation. It is important to free them from the yoke of assimilation and neo-colonialism. This means realising that this old regime is leading our island straight into the wall. Will the increasing number of power cuts help? We can only hope that they will help La Réunion to wake up.
Energy is a strategic sector. The plan for energy autonomy by 2025 using only La Réunion’s renewable energies, launched in 1998 by Paul Vergès, President of the La Réunion Region, showed the only way forward for development in this area. It was revealing that this plan was destroyed in 2010 by La Réunion’s elected representatives, who were afraid that La Réunion might take this responsible path. After all, it is more comfortable to leave the decisions to Paris and simply cash in on the supposed benefits of assimilation. But all this has its limits. The french Budget 2025 raises questions about Paris’s financial capacity to continue to buy social peace on La Réunion. If the manna from Paris diminishes, how much more will this class, which owes everything to assimilation and French neo-colonialism, be able to say?

M.M.