Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN deputies, arrived in Mayotte on Monday January 6, to meet victims of Cyclone Chido. An opportunity to also address the issue of illegal immigration, while the government must present a “Mayotte” bill this week. The RN group will amend it in the Assembly, she warns. In the meantime, Marine Le Pen reserved her first stop for a visit to the Mamoudzou hospital, where she found herself confronted with the dismay of the nursing staff.
They have had their feet in the water since Chido's visit. Three weeks were not enough for caregivers to rehabilitate the consultation rooms of the Jacaranda care unit. Under the half-collapsed ceiling of the dispensary, Marine Le Pen observes the damage. “You work without light, without air conditioning, without anything? I don't know what to tell you, other than that you are heroic, she tells them. We're going to take it all where we can, trying to have attentive ears.”
A caregiver, visibly exhausted, goes on her way. “Let us work”, she says to the RN delegation who came unexpectedly. His colleague Rahim looks at the scene with a little bit of hope. “We’re used to always having people who come and talk and then go home,” he observes.
“She is never president, but we hope that will change.”
Rahim, a resident, about Marine Le Penat franceinfo
But Marine Le Pen recognizes her powerlessness: “We are not in government, we are not decision-makers, but we are the ones who can ring the bell when everyone is looking elsewhere because there will have been other events that have occurred in the meantime.” The leader of the RN deputies has already promised to try to make changes to the government's emergency bill during its examination in Parliament.
-After the hospital, Marine Le Pen headed to the north of Grande-Terre, where people have been voting massively for the RN for several elections. The main opponent of Emmanuel Macron stops in Handréma, a village where some electric poles are still lying down. Marine Le Pen is welcomed on a ruined sports field by the mayor of the town, a former socialist, Harsani Tombou. “We are forgotten, that’s the feeling we have here. It’s really coping,” he laments.
Marine Le Pen listens and then criticizes the government's action: “There has been a concentration of efforts that has been made on a certain number of very precarious places like the slums, but the reality is that the Mahorais who do not have a roof are in a bit the same situation . They are in the rain, everything is lost.” In the crowded streets of the village, a veiled resident breaks down in front of the deputy. “Me personally, I am not voting for Madame Le Pen, but I find it scandalous that she had to come here,” she castigates.
“We can say what we want, it’s politics, she wants to recover. But this is the first time we’ve seen the media come here.”
A residentat franceinfo
The anger of French people who feel abandoned by the State, in mainland France as well as in Mayotte, is the main fuel of the National Rally.
