Seventeen arrested in Martinique unrest

Seventeen people were arrested overnight during rioting and looting on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, French La Chaine Info television reported on Tuesday.

The arrests took place as the police moved in to remove barricades put up at the entrance to a main road in the capital, Fort-de-France.

They were put up by transport workers involved in a dispute, which has been going on for several months, with a rival company and which has led to rioting and looting over the last two days.

The barricades were erected by members of the Fort-de-France Transport Company, SETUFF, in a dispute over operating rights while organized gangs took advantage of the situation to loot shops, France 2 teletext said in a separate report.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.