Flag of Martinique

The flags of Martinique

Martinique is an overseas region and department of France, so the official flag is the French tricolor of blue, white and red. The tricolor is flown with official standing on the island. The Martinique flag emoji is covered on its own page, and many platforms show the snake flag for it.

Two other flags are associated with the island:

• The red, green and black flag (red-green-black). It has a red triangle at the hoist and two horizontal bands, green above and black below. It was adopted on 2 February 2023 by the assembly of Martinique, by 44 votes in favor and one abstention. It is also called the rouge-vert-noir.
• The snake flag (drapeau aux serpents). It is a blue field with a white cross dividing it into four parts, with a white snake (a fer-de-lance) in each quarter.

Martinique flag meaning and colors

The red, green and black colors are the Pan-African colors popularized by Marcus Garvey's movement (the UNIA flag of 1920). The red, green and black flag was designed in 1968 by Guy Cabort-Masson and Alex Ferdinand and has long been the preferred symbol of Martinican independence activists. In Garvey's formulation red is the blood shed for redemption and liberty, black is the color of the African race, and green is the vegetation of the African homeland. These readings are not set out in an official text for the Martinique flag.

The snakes on the older flag are fer-de-lance vipers, a snake species endemic to the island. They are a local emblem rather than a national one.

History of the Martinique flag

Martinique became a French possession in 1635 and has stayed under France, apart from short British occupations. The snake flag dates from an edict of 4 August 1766, which told the vessels of the French colony of Martinique and Saint Lucia to fly a version of the French ensign of the time, a white cross on blue, with snakes in each quarter. It was never an official national flag, and before the 21st century it was little used on the island. In 2018 a Martinican member of the National Assembly asked for it to be withdrawn from public use, arguing that it was linked to the slave trade, and the National Gendarmerie stopped using it that year.

In 1946 Martinique became a French department. In 2016 the departmental and regional councils merged into the single Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique. Before 2023 Martinique had no official flag of its own: a flag chosen in 2018 was annulled by an administrative tribunal in 2021, and a public vote in 2022 and January 2023 first chose a hummingbird design, which was withdrawn after a controversy over its artwork. The runner-up, the red, green and black flag, was then adopted by the assembly in February 2023. It does not replace the French tricolor, which is also flown with official standing on the island.