Culture

Félix Choisy: Saint-Martin's first deputy mayor and conseiller général

A profile of Félix Choisy (1915–1989), first deputy mayor of Saint-Martin and the island's conseiller général in Guadeloupe from 1973 to 1979.

By SXM Daily · October 22, 2026

Félix Choisy was one of the leading figures in French Saint-Martin's local government in the years before the island had its own Collectivité. He served as first deputy mayor of Saint-Martin and, from 1973 to 1979, represented the island as its conseiller général in Guadeloupe, the French department Saint-Martin then belonged to.

Illustrative: Marigot harbour. Photo: Paul Sableman / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Early life

Choisy was born on 30 October 1915. France's national death records list his full civil name as Egelmont Louis Félix Choisy. Sources disagree on where he was born, so SXM Daily does not state a birthplace here.

Number two at the town hall

Until 2007, Saint-Martin was a commune of Guadeloupe, governed by a mayor and municipal council in Marigot. Choisy held the post of premier adjoint au maire, the first deputy mayor and the second-ranking figure in the town hall. Both the record of Saint-Martin's canton and the history writer Will Johnson, in a column on The Saba Islander, describe him in that role.

Saint-Martin's voice in Guadeloupe

From 1973 to 1979, Choisy sat as conseiller général for Saint-Martin, the island's elected member of Guadeloupe's General Council, the departmental assembly that also covered the northern islands. For six years he carried Saint-Martin's concerns to a council whose seat was far to the south, at a time when the island had no assembly of its own.

Later life

Choisy died in 1989 at Les Abymes in Guadeloupe, according to France's national death records.

Why he is remembered

Choisy belonged to the generation of French-side leaders who held the island's local offices while it was still run as part of Guadeloupe. The posts he held, at the town hall in Marigot and on the General Council, were the main links between Saint-Martin and the department's institutions in the decades before the 2007 change of status gave the island its own Territorial Council.

Sources

https://mesorigines.fr/deces/f4722f3f5b505b4004949d72663cf72c
https://thesabaislander.com/2017/04/11/deputy-mayor-felix-choisy/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marigot_Harbor_(16119231467).jpg

Source: https://mesorigines.fr/deces/f4722f3f5b505b4004949d72663cf72c