2025 wishes to the vital forces of President Louis Mussington
Only the spoken word is authentic.

The speech:
Mr. Prefect,
Ladies and Gentlemen Vice-Presidents,
Dear elected colleagues,
Dear Governor of Sint Maarten,
Dear members of Sint Maarten Government and Sint Maarten
Parliament,
Madam Director General of Services,
Ladies and Gentlemen, representatives of the Federations and local organizations,
Representatives of businesses and associations in the region,
Ladies and Gentlemen, representatives of the police, Religious representatives,
Ladies and gentlemen, presidents and directors of satellite public establishments,
State and National Education personnel,
Territorial Staff,
Members of the press,
Ladies and gentlemen in your ranks and capacities,
Good evening everyone and welcome to this traditional ceremony of wishes for 2025!
Thank you for coming in such large numbers this evening.
Your presence demonstrates the interest you have in our overseas collectivité and its future.
I am pleased to be back with you to share our vision with you, report on the achievements of the past year, and put into perspective the projects that we will carry out in 2025, with my political team, but also with the support of our new Director General of Services, Ms. Natasha PETRINE, and all of the administrative teams of the Collectivité, whom I greet this evening.
The year 2024 will not have been easy, far from it!
The Collectivité has worked in all directions: regional planning – improvement of the living environment – works – social support, economic and tourist development – professional training – sports and cultural activities…
The news has been dense, and we have had to respond to many challenges :
- Very serious news items,
- Tragedies on the roads,
- Union strikes,
- Traffic jams,
- The water crisis…
The people of Saint-Martin were not spared in 2024.
Fortunately, political life also offers us satisfactions:
I am thinking about the restart of the Air Antilles company despite the gloomy spirits,
I am thinking of the work on the two colleges 600 and 900, which will soon be completed,
To the school greening campaign and the numerous plantings of plants on public land,
The acquisition of the Beauperthuy land to preserve our heritage,
At unifying events for the population such as Fish Day, Carnival, and the Gastronomy Festival, sports competitions, events supported by the Collectivité,
Not forgetting the tourist season and its encouraging occupancy rates this year,
And ambitious private initiatives, which keep our economy alive.
Saint-Martin is developing, it is promising for the future, but we must transform the test over time and remain lucid: The challenges to be met, today and tomorrow, are increasingly demanding and the expectations of the population are strong and legitimate.
As you know, our Overseas Collectivité has the particularity, through Article 74, of combining municipal, regional, departmental and state powers.
This level of competence is a point that many tend to neglect and which requires the collectivité and its public establishments to take the measure of this complexity and to respond to it with the necessary perspective and technicality.
As you also know, the success of our territory is based on both economic attractiveness and the strength of its institutions.
Without this essential balance, we move forward with difficulty and obstacles are more difficult to overcome.
From 2022, our ambition has been to structure and modernize our administration to give it all its capacities and allow it to fully exercise its skills.
It must be acknowledged that despite 18 years of existence, the Collectivité had not passed this milestone and that it was urgent to scale up our administration.
Some people still don't understand it, but it is to meet these needs that we hired!
This is why our political action focuses on a major priority: Promoting the attractiveness of Saint-Martin and building a community of destiny on solid and sustainable foundations.
The first part of the emergency mandate consisted of focusing on human development, and in the second part, we will focus our efforts on economic development and structural equipment.
This brings me to the issue of territorial security , a sine qua non condition for public tranquility and flourishing, high-end tourism, as we aim for our destination.
Each year, the collectivité funds the St Martin Tourist Office to the tune of 9 million euros, a budget tripled in 3 years.
We have tripled this budget because we want Saint-Martin to shine abroad and to be a lively, welcoming territory, to develop our tourism industry and attract more and more visitors.
Public safety is at the heart of our lives. There is nothing worse than a feeling of insecurity for our compatriots and our tourists.
I would like to thank the Prefect and his teams, the police, gendarmerie and territorial police, for their commitment and the action plan deployed on 9 January, with the aim of securing busy areas during the high season.
But we must go further!
As in the 2010s, when Saint-Martin experienced a




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