FRENCH COUPLE LEAVES SEYCHELLES AMID DEATH THREATS

They moved to Seychelles because they had fallen in love with the country and wanted their nine year-old son to grow up here. But an argument with a neighbour on Praslin escalated into a situation fraught with danger and intimidation. Faced with the authorities’ reluctance to help and protect them, Carine and Alain Gagneux left Seychelles for good on 16 April. This is their story.

Carine and Alain Gagneux have been coming to Seychelles for the past 22 years. Over the years, the French couple had developed an attachment to Seychelles but more particularly to Praslin, where they go every time they visit the country. The couple’s nine year-old son practically grew up here. The young family speaks and understands Creole, has many Seychellois friends and every year when the time to leave Seychelles comes, they find that they are more and more reluctant to go back “home”.

 So they decided to take the leap they have been dreaming of for years by making a permanent move to Seychelles. In March, they arrived in Seychelles with big hopes packed in their suitcases. They rented out a house at Anse Kerlan, Praslin. They didn’t know the area particularly well, having stayed at Grand Anse, Mont Plaisir and Ste Anne during their previous visits.

 On 18 March, they moved into their new house and began procedures to start a business there, hoping that their investment would allow them to apply for a residence permit. On Saturday 4 April, their neighbour and two of his friends walked onto their land and started throwing cut grass and dead plants onto the lawn. When Alain Gagneux asked what the act of aggression was about, the three men started insulting Mr Gagneux, accusing him of dumping the dead plants on his property.

What should have been a civilized conversation among neighbours turned into a heated discussion complete with death threats and xenophobic remarks. The couple insisted that they did not dump anything in their neighbour’s garden but still promised to have it cleaned, in the name of keeping the peace.

 Except that the men would not calm down. Instead, according to the couple, they left with a chilling threat: “In three days, you will leave Seychelles in tears. You will cry. You will cry”. The next day, the men came back with a machete. When Mrs Cagneux told them that the gardener would arrive shortly, one of the men shows his machete to the French woman before making obscene remarks. Scared, the couple decided to call the police. When the law enforcement officers arrived on the scene,  they called the neighbours in an attempt to reconcile the two parties But it all went frightfully wrong for the couple who found themselves accused of threatening their neighbours! When Mrs Gagneux told the police that she had been threatened with a machete, the neighbours denied that a weapon had been used to threaten Gagneux couple. And the police chose to believe the neighbours. When Mrs Gagneux told the authorities that she had photos to prove her claims, the police made her delete the evidence.

The Gagneux’s neighbour’s machete is clearly visible.

 The days that followed were, according to the French couple, “a nightmare”. They were forced to leave their house and seek refuge in a hotel. The police, they say, refused to take them seriously and every time they made a trip back to the house, fresh threats were made by the neighbours. At some point, the couple, tired of being afraid and anxious that the situation would prove too traumatic to their child, decided that righteous anger would be a more effective weapon. So they decided to go back to the house they had rented for five years. One night there was enough, Carine Gagneux stated. They had to barricade themselves in the house because the neighbours kept walking up to the house to scare them.

The next morning, they left never to return. But they faced a dilemma : should they leave Praslin and Seychelles or alert the authorities? They decided to go for the latter. Emails were sent and phone calls were made to the ministry of Tourism, the ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry of Home Affairs as well as to the French embassy. Contacts were made with newspapers. But somehow, according to the Gagneux, no one came to their help.

On 16 April, exhausted by the tension and disillusioned by their experience, the French family left Seychelles for good. Asked by email what their future projects are, they say “to never come back to Seychelles. The threats were real and we could tell this wasn’t something that was going to go away. We were left defenseless, we realised that we couldn’t count on the protection of the police since they already told us there was no case against the people who threatened us. We had to leave because we cannot accept to live without justice.

Our nine year old son has suffered enormously from the situation”, the couple said. They also claim that the men who had threatened them “are known on Praslin for terrorizing people, especially foreigners and this is why the police are not doing anything. They too, are scared of them”. In a letter sent to the President of the Republic after their departure from Seychelles, the Gagneux couple said that, “we have come to a bitter realization – that this country, once so peaceful, is falling prey to alcoholism, drug abuse and violence. This country where one could sleep with the windows open, where people used to smile, where racism didn’t exist, where people were proud to be Seychellois. We would so have loved to become Seychellois and we would have been proud of it”.

Source:Today