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In Mayotte, the revival of slums weakens the scenario of their disappearance
In Mayotte, two and a half weeks after the devastating passage of the cyclone, the slums reappear. And each hammer blow further drives home François Bayrou’s promise to “prevent the reconstruction” of this precarious habitat where a third of the population lives. For several days, the dull sound of tools working the sheet metal has resonated in the district of Cavani Sud huts, stretching for kilometers on the hillside, in Grande-Terre. Men carry wooden blocks with rusty nails, a woman sitting on the ground fills bags of cement, neighbors sort the rubble, inspecting each piece of debris, all under an overwhelming sun. On December 14, Cyclone Chido swept away the precarious housing of Cavani Sud, a district of Mamoudzou, the capital of the small archipelago in the Indian Ocean. But among the waste that dangerously litters the ground – shattered household appliances, torn fabrics, children’s toys, broken mattresses – the gray tin houses are getting back up. And to be able to build in an emergency, the D system is pushed to its limits, making these homes even more precarious and dangerous. – “In haste” -At the informal landfill of the M’tsapéré median, a village south of Mamoudzou, the inhabitants rummage through the giant piles of garbage and leave with construction equipment in poor condition on their heads. The house that Soubira Attoumani rebuilt with his brother in Cavani Sud is thus “less resistant than the one that was there before”, sighs the 41-year-old man. He points to the patchwork sheets: “Do you see the difference in color? Some were the original ones, others were recovered, others purchased.” “Before, we could study which board we put, the place where we were building, today it’s a rush,” he explains. For Abdou Ansoirdine too, “it was better before, when it was new.” The baker confides that he spent 400 euros to buy “27 sheets” but had to fall back on “recovery, left, right, for the rest”. Chaher “took two days” to put the family home back on its feet, completely destroyed by the winds. With a smile on his lips, he proudly shows the solar panels installed on the roof, which provide him with precious electricity, failing on the island after Chido. – “No solutions proposed” – The inhabitants are forced to “tinker” so as not to ” having to sleep outside”, laments Youssoufi Said who was forced to use wood rather than sheet metal. “The emergency is to find shelter to face the rainy season, since there are no solutions proposed by the State”, sighs, fatalistically, Soubira Attoumani. During his trip to Mayotte at the start of the week, François Bayrou promised “to prevent the reconstruction” of the slums, without specify where their inhabitants – a third of the population – would be relocated. Then, questioned in Reunion about the barracks already rebuilt, the Prime Minister affirmed that “we will obviously intervene”. “But we have to find reception centers. It can’t be done by snapping our fingers, but in any case, the State has the responsibility to say ‘this is not acceptable’.” “It is not acceptable to be in Mayotte with absolutely uncontrolled immigration”, he added, while deeming the subject “extremely difficult”, due to the geographical but also cultural proximity with the Comoros. The fate of the slums goes beyond the question migration, “a quarter of French people in Mayotte living in tin houses”, recalls researcher Cyrille Hanappe in his 2023 study “In Mayotte, eviction policies without rehousing”. The “emergency” bill for Mayotte , which should include a measure on the reduction of precarious housing, will be presented to the Council of Ministers next week.ola-are/bfa/vk
