^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Martinique

by Johann Eisenreich

Description of the flag
Independist flag

Description of the flag

The official flag is the French one, but there is a banner of the arms, a blue field with a white cross, and in each canton a white snake in the form of an 'L'. I don't know if this is official, but it appears in Hesmer's book. Devereux's book says it flies only with the French Tricolour.

It was the flag for the former French colony of Saint-Lucia/Martinique.The "L" snakes which appear in the arms and flag, remember the "L" of Lucia, although this flag never flew on that island.

Pascal Vagnat - 1996-03-01

Yes, they are snakes. They are also meant to be in the shape of a stylised "L", a bit like the British pound sign, which is short for "Librus" (well the Latin for "pound" anyway)

The L means "Lucia" because Guadeloupe was administered from St. Lucia before the British took that island. The flag is, therefore, quite old - it pre-dates the French Revolution.

The white cross on blue can also be seen in the flag of Quebec, and is in fact France's traditional national cross - equivalent to England's red cross on white.

Roy Stilling - 1996-07-06

The proportions are 2:3.

Pascal Vagnat -1996-03-13

Independist flag

There is also here a flag for the independentists:it is black-red-black with thin white stripes between the black and the red.

Pascal Vagnat - 1996-03-01

On the red near the hoist appears a yellow Madyoumbe.The independentist movement is called MIM (Mouvement Independantiste Martiniquais).

Pascal Vagnat - 1996-03-13