MARIGOT--President Frantz Gumbs and Senator Louis-Constant Fleming addressed some of the Collectivité's main concerns when they met with President of the French Senate Gérard Larcher on his first official visit to St. Martin on Thursday.

Larcher and his delegation proceeded from the airport straight to Hotel de La Collectivité for the official speeches and visited the Marigot waterfront, Louis-Constant Fleming Hospital, and social housing projects in French Quarter later. The delegation had visited St. Barths earlier in the day.

President Gumbs said in his speech that the Territorial Council, Executive Council, and Economic, Social, and Cultural Council worked with seriousness and tenacity with the means they had, but stressed that the necessary synergy between the Collectivité and certain services of the State at the central administration level "leaves much to be desired."

Gumbs said the State's interpretation of the organic law was sometimes "restrictive and not in St. Martin's favour" and reminded that the 12-million-euro product of the Octroi de Mer had never been compensated, despite the Collectivité understanding that it had been approved. This amount of money is missing from the Collectivité budget.

He added that also one million euros worth of house tax had been lost because State services did not have logistics in place to collect it.

Gumbs reaffirmed that there were no regrets in choosing Article 74, but said the Collectivité had the impression the "brakes" had been applied to its economic development. In this regard, he refereed to major projects such as the future development of the Marigot waterfront and expansion of Grand Case Airport.

"To realise these projects we are still waiting for the Plan Etat COM, the mandate for which was promised to the Préfet to negotiate and sign contracts."

Concluding, Gumbs mentioned there had never been the courtesy of a response from the relevant ministries on the Romney affair, but despite the grievances aired in his speech he hoped the President would be able to "oil the wheels of the higher administration" to act in St. Martin's favour on those grievances.

Senator Louis-Constant Fleming noted that "new competences have been constantly confronted by multiple roadblocks and different interpretations of autonomy" since the installation of the Collectivité in July 2007.

He said the principles of the "Competence de Source" needed to be put back into question following the latest developments on taxing State civil servants regardless of whether they were considered fiscal residents or not. He also noted that the conclusions of the Commission Consultative d'Evaluation des Charges still had not been the subject of an "arrêté."

Fleming said it was important that Paris knew of St. Martin's unique geographical, cultural, economic, and social situation, and that administrations and Parisian media needed to understand that St. Martin was not a fiscal paradise.

"But we continue to suffer from this erroneous image which does not reflect our reality or our ambitions," Fleming added.

Fleming called for a new "Information Mission" to be set up urgently that would analyse St. Martin's actual situation and oversee conformity between legislative requirements and the real needs of the Collectivité.

"The Senate is today the only national institution that can efficiently tackle the problems we have and I believe this initiative will bring clarity to our Government colleagues by putting real perspective into our ambitions."

President Larcher said St. Martin was the 62nd Collectivité he had visited in the past 15 months and noted 12 of those Collectivités were located overseas.

He said he understood all the concerns mentioned and the purpose of his visit was precisely to understand the situation in St. Martin and to make sure the State respected the will of each Collectivité. Some of those concerns he addressed.

He said he would follow up on the Plan Etat COM when he returned to Paris, but had already made a phone call about it from President Gumbs' office. He said it would have to be decided what form the Information Mission would take to get results as quickly as possible.

The planned walk on the Marigot waterfront was shelved due to a heavy downpour, the delegation members staying in their cars while they were briefed on the development plans.

Then it was on to Louis-Constant Fleming Hospital where President Larcher met Interim Director Hervé Magott and was shown the construction site of the new Psychiatric Centre for the hospital. The 2,530,000-euro 19-bed building is expected to be delivered to the hospital in September 2011. Semsamar is the supervising contractor and project manager René-Jean Duret gave an overview for the President.

Semsamar has three other projects in the works in the vicinity of the hospital.

Also present at this gathering was Yvette Fleming-Hodge, who had donated the land for the project. She was personally thanked by Larcher.

Larcher was invited to lay the first stone for the Psychiatric Centre, and President Gumbs, Senator Fleming, and Préfet Simonnet followed suit. A plaque was then unveiled.

The president was also given a tour of the hospital and emergency room by department heads.

The final visit was to the social housing projects in French Quarter before the delegation returned to Grand Case Airport for its return flight to Guadeloupe and Paris.