According to Patrice Magneron, France should develop port infrastructure in Mayotte, given the commercial and military interest of this region of the world.
Patrice Magneron: “Why not make Mayotte a fourth maritime region?”
Patrice Magneron fears that the emergency law for Mayotte will not be able to respond to the seriousness of the situation. “The number one black spot in Mayotte is this illegal immigration which completely disrupts the balance. Because there is no suitable infrastructure to accommodate so many people. Will the Emergency law respond to the problem posed by Mayotte? Well, it is above all a law which is there to define new aid following the passage of the cyclone. Will this be a catch-up on what should have been paid in previous years? No. This reminds me a little of the military programming law: we vote for funds, then we never see the color, I'm a little afraid of that.
Especially since we could certainly resolve this situation if we gave Mayotte a status other than that of department and region. Why not create a fourth maritime region with powers that would be reinforced at the local level? The problem is about control and the power that we will attribute to the local prefect. Today, there is no maritime prefect. Then, we will have to develop port infrastructure and have tools, frigates, to be able to control the borders. And then also, even if we agree that the Comoros have their own sovereignty, we will still have to sit around the table with the Comoros and negotiate this situation. We know well that today President Azali of the Comoros, who is sovereign, wants to recover Mayotte. But as the Comorian population itself experiences difficulties on the three Comorian islands… This also explains the massive influx of immigration: if things went better there, obviously there would be fewer people here.”
“We have the advantage of geopolitical positioning, including in Mayotte”
Patrice Magneron believes that France does not exploit enough of the maritime space at its disposal, particularly around its various islands. “Beyond the sadness, the desolation following the passage of the cyclone and all the human misfortunes that it will cause, there is a question that torments me: has, all things considered, metropolitan France taken well the measurement of all the challenges of its maritime space? It is repeated from time to time that France has the second, or even the first, maritime space in the world, with approximately 10 million square kilometers. But what do we do with it? France's place in the world today tends to be eroded by a group of States which do not only want us well. To put it bluntly, we get kicked out almost everywhere. And it's a shame, because we have real assets. We have a cultural advantage, we have the advantage of language, and then the advantage of geopolitical positioning, including in Mayotte. And Mayotte is the Mozambique Channel: around 30% of international oil trade passes there, so it's still not nothing. And then these are resources to be exploited at the local level. We're falling behind. And above all, we risk having our money stolen by the Chinese, the Americans, the South Africans… So, to say that this region represents nothing for us is not true. Economically, it could mean something.“
Militarily too, Mayotte can represent something…”It turns out that Mayotte has a fairly unique natural space in the world, since it is one of the deepest lagoons. We could absolutely install a naval base there, a submarine base. It would be all the more relevant to install it there for the reasons I have just mentioned regarding international maritime trade. We could be required to defend the coasts and commercial ships“, said Patrice Magneron.
“Then we can develop the island itself. Things have been done by France: following the 1986 referendum, there were a set of measures taken to develop the island. But where the situation deteriorated was from 2011, that is to say from the moment it obtained its department-region status. It seems that there, in the absence of any control of our borders, we allowed immigration to pass which caused two effects: overpopulation of the island. You should know that the population density is twice as high in Mayotte as in the Comoros. We are approximately 800 inhabitants per km2. We have a population that is very difficult to estimate, because there is still a lot of illegal immigration, but roughly we are around 250,000-300,000 inhabitants. It's a lot. And the infrastructure has not kept up: we have one hospital for 300,000 inhabitants. So, you can imagine what that might have been like when the cyclone passed.“, continued Patrice Magneron.
Click here to listen to André Bercoff's guest podcast in its entirety.
Find “Le face à face” by André Bercoff every day at 1 p.m. in Bercoff in all its forms Sud Radio.
All frequencies of South Radio are here!
