Voters in French Guiana rejected an offer from France for more autonomy for the territory bordering Brazil and Suriname in South America.

Early results from Martinique, where a similar referendum was held, show voters on the Caribbean island were likely to follow Guiana's lead.

The votes were held a year after the French overseas departments in the Caribbean as well as the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion were convulsed by strikes and rioting over low wages and high prices.

President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed holding the referendums when he travelled to Martinique in June as part of a drive to heal ties following the general strike which degenerated into weeks of rioting at the start of 2009.

Slightly over 48 percent of Guianian voters cast ballots in the Sunday referendum, with 69.8 percent voting against more autonomy, according to definitive results released by French authorities.

An opinion poll published on Thursday in Martinique said 59 percent of voters on the island would say no.

Martinique, which has around 400 000 residents, and Guiana, a vast territory with some 200 000 residents, were asked to approve or reject a change in status for their departments.

The wording of the question was technical but in essence it asked voters if they wanted to change the status to make it more like more autonomous French territories such as New Caledonia in the Pacific.

Sixty years after being granted the status of department — which makes them legally as French as Normandy or Provence — the tropical territories face recurrent social problems including high unemployment and low wages despite massive financial support from the state.

The mayor of Guiana's capital Cayenne, Rodolphe Alexandre, said the question of financing drove the campaign and the result of the referendum.

While recognising the current statute has its drawbacks, Alexandre said "in the end its not a problem of powers or the statute but of financing and strategy. That is what changed people's minds."

He called the result a "victory for democracy, for the silent majority."

France's opposition Socialists suggested that Sarkozy's warning that more autonomy would come with less state support influenced the result.

"What could have weighed on the result is the president saying in February 2009 that with the transfer of powers to overseas departments funding should be from local resources," Socialist party chief for overseas departments Axel Urgin said on RFO radio.

Martinique, a major rum and banana producer and a tourist destination for mainland French seeking winter sunshine, has an unemployment rate topping 20 percent, more than twice that of metropolitan France.

Guiana, perhaps best known as the launch site for Europe's Ariane space rockets, faces similarly high joblessness.

"No" campaigners had warned the French state might be seeking to disengage from its overseas departments and reduce their people's social benefits, which are largely the same as in France.

Voters on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which had also been convulsed by strikes, did not take part in the consultation as their local leaders decided that the tense social climate was not conducive to holding a referendum.

AFP

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