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It allocated more than $500 million in aid and subsidies in the first six months after the storm to the recovery and reconstruction of Saint-Martin and the smaller, nearby French island of �������Գ�-�������ٳ�é���𳾲�, according to Sylvie Feucher, the French state’s top representative based in the two territories.

A court in the port city ruled that the McDonald’s in the Saint-Barthélémy neighborhood, prized by its workers for providing an alternative to the area’s pervasive drug trade, could not be sold to a Middle Eastern foods operator, Hali Food, that the employees had never met.

This week the top McDonald’s official for southern France, Sébastien Bordas, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the only feature distinguishing the Saint-Barthélémy McDonald’s was “economic,” citing its losses.

The object of their improbable affection is a squat low-rise box in the Saint-Barthélémy neighborhood, in the city’s far north, miles from the pastel-hued port.

The neighbors of the Saint-Barthélémy McDonald’s — boxy, off-white, six-story cement housing projects with difficult reputations — are hardly more picturesque than the fast-food restaurant.