An emergency situation that requires emergency solutions. While 70% of the inhabitants are seriously affected by Cyclone Chido and “several hundred” or even “several thousand” deaths are mentioned according to an assessment which can only be provisional, the resigning Minister of the Interior has decided to extend the powers of the prefect of the devastated archipelago. “I asked the prefect of Mayotte to activate article 27 of the orientation and programming law of the Ministry of the Interior adopted in 2023,” wrote the former boss of LR senators on X, this Sunday December 15. A temporary provision, which should allow the authorities to “make crisis management more efficient” in the territory.
“In view of the exceptional crisis affecting the entire territory of Mayotte, and in agreement with the Minister of the Interior, the prefect of the defense and security zone of the South of the Indian Ocean, Patrice Latron, activates this “updates article 742-2-1 of the internal security code which grants extensive powers to the prefect of Mayotte in matters of crisis management”, indicates the press release from the authorities.
“A rapid and coordinated response”
Concretely, this legal regime “aims to strengthen the management of serious crises by guaranteeing a rapid and coordinated response between the different public actors. The prefect will thus be able, for a limited period, to centralize decision-making on services which usually operate autonomously,” explains Bruno Retailleau. “In the direction of relief operations, the prefect becomes the employment authority for all emergency services, public security, health security, food security,” illustrates the first cop in France.
For example, “the director general of the Regional Health Agency (ARS), the regional or departmental director of public finances or the rector” may be concerned, indicates the press release from the Ministry of the Interior. However, justice services are excluded from this field of action, which remain “in any case” independent.
Arrangements already taken in 2023
“These provisions will end as soon as the circumstances which justified them no longer exist,” according to the same press release. They are taken for a maximum duration of one month and can be renewed “per period of one month at most”. They were already taken in September 2023, when the water crisis hit the archipelago. At that time, they made it possible to centralize the management of the rectorate, the Regional Health Agency, the French Biodiversity Office and Métro France.
Cyclone Chido is the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in 90 years. In a situation update, following the interministerial crisis council (CIC), transmitted this Tuesday, December 17, the authorities deplore “the death of 21 people in hospital”, mention “45 injured in absolute emergency and 1,373 in relative emergency “. They specify that “the number of deaths does not correspond to the reality of the 100,000 people who live in precarious housing” and indicate that “the prefect ordered the sub-prefect to set up a research mission deaths.”
