Woman told Dutch licence
no good on French side
BELLE PLAINE--A Dutch St. Maarten resident is wondering why her Netherlands Antilles driver’s licence is not valid in French St. Martin. Her puzzlement stems from being ordered out of the French side Monday by a Gendarme who told her she had no right to be there.
Ysamela Diudone told The Daily Herald she had been on her way to visit a friend when she was stopped by a Gendarme in Belle Plaine who wanted to see her documents. After showing her valid driver’s licence and residence papers for the Dutch side, the woman said, she was asked to leave her bus and sit in a Gendarme vehicle that transported her to the Gendarmerie station in La Savane.
Arriving there, she was fingerprinted and her photo was taken. “I don’t know why they did this, because I am no criminal.”
Asked if any reason had been given for detaining her, Diudone said the Gendarme had told her she had no right to be on the French side, because her licence was not valid there, and he was letting her off with just a warning this time. “He told me, ‘I don’t want to see you driving on this side again.’”
The woman was allowed to leave and her vehicle was returned to her. “I want to know if you have a Dutch side licence if you can’t visit or shop on the French side. As I see it, this is one island. French-side people come over here all the time and nothing happens to them.”
Asked for an explanation, new Gendarmerie spokesman Stéphane Aurousseau said the woman’s driver’s licence had been issued in Saba and therefore was not valid in French St. Martin or France. He gave no other reason why the woman had been detained briefly in the La Savane headquarters.
