Absolutely. Shopping for anything is a nightmare. If you can find parking you will wait in long lines. We have driven by GM several times and not gone in due to no parking, after dealing with "high season" traffic to get there. As the OP posted mainly about French side, he is right that it is much quieter and slower to recover (surprisingly to me). But it's coming along. Both governments need to get their act together to move forward. You can't expect folks to wait 3 months for you to decide what the building code will be!!!!!!

I do agree however with the OP's concern about civil unrest in the future. If the governments can't get their act together and provide retraining and support for all these poor folks who are or will be idle, I shudder to think what may happen. Having been thru the days of looting, I know that will been doomsday for this island.