The project is colossal. At the height of the devastation left in Mayotte by the passage of Cyclone Chido on December 14. On the archipelago, where everything is on the ground, the new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, announced Monday, December 30, the outlines of a “Mayotte standing” plan to rebuild the French department. A draft “emergency law”, soon to be presented to the Council of Ministers, must also be examined in Parliament within 15 days. The objective is set. There remains a concrete question: how to achieve it?
From the outset, the tenant of Matignon undertook to “prevent the reconstruction of slums”, specifying that this provision could be “enshrined in law”. In Mayotte, all of the “wave” these makeshift accommodations, which represent 40% of homes, were destroyed during the cyclone. But, already, a large part of them have been rebuilt by inhabitants in a situation of survival and looking for shelter at the start of the rainy season.
The matter remains sensitive. These slums, in which a large part of illegal migrants from neighboring Comoros reside, had already been partly destroyed by the authorities in 2023 as part of Operation Wuambushu, then in April 2024. Dismantling whose effectiveness had been considered mixed among the Mahorese population.
On Monday, the Prime Minister did not speak out on the migration issue or on the rehousing of these thousands of precarious inhabitants. A few days after the disaster, he mentioned the launch of a call for projects to build homes “immediately mountable”. An idea received with suspicion by reconstruction professionals. “We have in memory of the prefabs installed after the earthquake in Haiti [en 2021], very expensive and above ground. They did not correspond to the needs and expectations of the populations, particularly in terms of natural air circulation”, denounces Alexandre Girauddirector of philanthropic action at the Fondation de France.
“What was done in Port-au-Prince is an example of what should not be done,” agrees Patrick Coulombel, co-founder of the Architectes de l'urgence foundation, one of the actors in the reconstruction of Mayotte. “Transitional housing has led to the expansion of the slums of Port-au-Prince and has resulted in few permanent constructions,” he continues.
“Prefabs are temporary that will never go away.”
Patrick Coulombel, co-founder of the Architects of Emergency foundationat franceinfo
In the meantime, to guide the various actors in reconstruction in the face of a major disaster, the UN is recommending a strategy: “Build Back Better”, in other words how to “build back better”. Created as an injunction in 2005 during the international disaster risk reduction conference in Kobe (Japan), “Build Back Better” aims to “take advantage of the disaster to recover less vulnerable, more resilient”summarizes Annabelle Moatty, geographer, research fellow at the CNRS in the Physical Geography laboratory.
“Build Back Better” firstly aims to reorganize the governance of the territory after the crisis. “The aim is to save time in decision-making by reducing the constraints, particularly administrative ones, which weigh on the affected areas”, explains the researcher. A few days after the cyclone hit Mayottethe Council of State thus validated an emergency bill. The text, which should be presented to the Council of Ministers the week of January 6, develops a range of exceptional measures to facilitate reconstruction, in particular by easing urban planning rules, with the exception of paracyclonic and seismic rules.
Do it quickly, of course. But above all, do better. For all the experts contacted by franceinfo, the future of Mayotte will require more resistant buildings. In Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami or in Japan after the 2011 earthquake, such an approach led to the relocation of entire villages. “Villages and towns have been relocated outside of risk areas but this required significant land availability”, explains Annabelle Moatty. Impossible to transpose this model to Mayotte, which does not have enough available land and has a different property regime. “We would like to be able to find solutions that work everywhere with very little uncertainty, but each situation is unique and each person involved must develop innovation capabilities to adapt”, she emphasizes.
To innovate and adapt, “we must draw inspiration from what is being done in countries with weak economies, such as in the slums of Medellín, in Colombia”, thus defends Cyrille Hanappe, founding partner of the AIR architecture agency and director of the “Architecture and major risks” diploma at Paris-Belleville. According to him, the reconstruction of homes in Mayotte requires the establishment of a network of shelters in the event of a new disaster, but also by the delivery of electricity and water networks, while the archipelago notably experienced a water crisis in 2023. The “Mayotte standing” plan presented on Monday thus provides for the installation of a dsecond desalination plant in the territory and “the acceleration of the creation of the third hill reservoir [ouvrages de stockage de l’eau].”
Support and training of the Mahorais so that they can improve their housing themselves constitutes another essential aspect of the project : “On brings public services and we let the residents manage in their homes”explains Cyrille Hanappe. He adds that this support work “can start quickly” but must continue “over the long term.” The government plan for the reconstruction of Mayotte already specifies that of the elements of metal frames and sheets must be urgently sent to repair roofs. Moreover, of the “workshops to shape these elements will be installed, with on-site training to ensure manufacturing in the archipelago”explains Matignon.
The future of Mayotte will not only involve the repair of its homes or its public buildings. The economic recovery of populations is one of the founding principles of “Build Back Better”. In Saint-Martin, a French territory severely hit by storm Irma in 2017, the economy was mainly based on tourism. In the aftermath of the disaster, the island was no longer popular with tourists, explains Annabelle Moatty. A lesson that must be learned for the reconstruction of Mayotte, according to the researcher: “Reflection must be instituted to find sustainable means of subsistence that are as diversified as possible.”
The experience of Irma in Saint-Martin also made it possible to realize the importance of the development of resilient ecosystems. The reconstruction of Mayotte will necessarily involve the restoration and extension of the natural surfaces occupied by mangroves, explains Alexandre Giraud. This ecosystem makes it possible, in the event of a hurricane or storm, to limit the impact of waves but also to fight against erosion and facilitate runoff in the event of heavy rain. “The idea is to be able to build back better, both by improving access to basic needs for the population, but also by taking into account climate risks,” he summarizes. Which will require immense work of coordination with local authorities and field stakeholders.
