Medef head Laurence Parisot warned that talks are "still very complex." She told Europe-1 radio in an interview Sunday: "The latest news that I received last night demonstrated that we were perhaps not that near a deal."
Parisot also complained that delegates representing the island's employers were "not sufficiently listened to" by France's minister for overseas departments, Yves Jego. Government officials should help "everyone advance together" and "not take sides to make one side advance against the other," she said.
The strike, by workers demanding a higher wages for Guadeloupe's low earners, began in late January. Violence flared last week and a striking labor union member was shot to death, apparently by rioting youths.
But tensions largely died down following a televised address Thursday by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who announced a euro580 million ($730 million) financial package to help development in France's overseas regions.
French officials have suggested an accord that would end the standoff is on the horizon, but negotiations have proven slow. Strikes have also spread to neighboring Martinique.