Lhe “Mayotte standing” plan announced after Christmas on the devastated island by Prime Minister François Bayrou and the appointment of a Minister of State in charge of Overseas Territories, Manuel Valls, have revived hope. Without allaying the fears of the Mahorais and, more broadly, those of the French living in overseas territories under tension.
This is the case in New Caledonia where the political crisis continues after the riots of May 2024 which brought the economy to its knees. But also in the Antilles, where there are protests against the high cost of living, in Guyana under migratory pressure or in Reunion which fears for its integration model. A quick overview.
1. Overseas no longer wants to be “peripheral”
They were called “DOM-TOM”, an acronym whose musicality evoked African tom-toms, hence its persistent popularity in the vocabulary. However, the 2.8 million French people spread over 120,000 km² of other continents find it difficult to cope with being essentialized in exotic and postcolonial France as an island paradise when their places of life are so diverse, their problems glaring and their statuses so different. “Overseas is to France what the province is to Paris,” quips Nice geographer Jean-Christophe Gay.
The word “metropolis” carries too many innuendoes about their so-called “periphery”, the Ultramarines prefer “Hexagon”. Hasn’t Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, in Canada, been French since 1604 and Cayenne la Guyanese since 1614, long before Savoy and Nice were attached to France? These overseas waters are not only tropical but cold too: think of Clipperton, Kerguelen, Adélie Land and other “southern and Antarctic lands” populated by penguins and bundled-up researchers.
2. Mayotte or the post-cyclonic emergency
While the red alert for Cyclone Dikeledi will be triggered this evening, the island of Mayotte, “Departmentalized” in 2011, was already concentrating the handicaps before Chido fell on it: insularity, poverty, certainly relative in its environment regional but very real, uncontrollable immigration born from the attraction of other Comorians for this fragile El Dorado, water shortages, economic dependence.
The large-scale reconstruction imposed by the cyclone is such a challenge that the comparison with the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris was necessary, including for decision-makers. It will be necessary, as with the burned cathedral, to bypass administrative rules and unify command to put Mayotte back on its feet. Without being sure to outpace the reappearance of rickety sheet metal huts in the slums of Mamoudzou. This January 13, a month after Chido, the start of the school year announced while a third of the schools are on the ground or still occupied by thousands of victims embodies the difficulty of translating public voluntarism into action.
3. The multicultural meeting worries
Cross-breeding is the pride of the Reunion Islanders. Populations converged on this formerly uninhabited volcano. The Indians are “malbar”, the Muslims from Indian Gujarat are “zarab”, the descendants of African slaves are “kaffirs”, the French metropolitans are “zorey”, the white Creoles from the heights are “yab”, without forgetting the Chinese and the Malagasy. From this mixing came an authentic “Reunionese” identity where the temple, the church and the mosque mix, as do the flavors and the dances.
At the start of the school year, a third of schools are on the ground or still occupied by thousands of victims
But this multicultural model is faltering. Especially since “Komor” – Mahorese families who have crossed the 1,400 km separating the two islands – have invited themselves to the foot of the Piton de la Fournaise, attracted for years by the enormous gap in living standards. However, a divide has emerged with these newcomers despite their integration efforts. Especially since gangs of unaccompanied Comorian minors are rampant, victims are flocking from Mayotte and the National Rally is fueling anti-Mahorese discourse.
4. In New Caledonia, the untraceable status
Overshadowed by current events in Mahor, the New Caledonian puzzle is far from being resolved, even if Michel Barnier’s decision to freeze the revision of the electoral lists and to postpone the provincial elections until the end of 2025 has helped to calm the spirits. A sign of the fragility of the situation in Nouméa, the independence president of the island’s collegial government, Louis Mapou, fell at Christmas, abandoned by some of his supporters, and was replaced by Alcide Ponga, an LR from a non-independence Kanak family.
The dispute concerns the method of financing by the State for the reconstruction of the territory after the riots of May 2024 which left 14 dead, more than two billion euros in damage and dealt a terrible blow to the economic fabric of “Caillou” . Should the money be paid in the form of loans conditional on reforms as Louis Mapou had accepted, causing the defection of an allied party? Alcide Ponga, who comes from the mining sector, still the leading private employer despite the nickel crisis, will have to decide.
5. Antilles and Guyana, life is too expensive
Guyana in 2017, Mayotte in 2018, Guadeloupe in 2021, Martinique in 2024: protests against the high cost of living are recurrent in the overseas departments (DOM). The reasons are known: food products are massively imported there and distribution is concentrated for the benefit of a handful of operators. Added to this is the practice of “dock dues”, an old tax on imports that customs pay to the municipalities and which ensures their financial autonomy: difficult to touch, therefore.
The price gaps – not just food – with France are all the more badly felt as the delay in the Overseas Territories persists, visible on numerous indicators: household income, infant mortality, unemployment, school failure, equal opportunities, number of RSA beneficiaries, access to drinking water, unsanitary housing. Martinicans and Guadeloupeans must also manage the long-term health consequences of exposure to chlordecone, this pesticide used from 1972 to 1993 in banana plantations.
