[STRICTEMENT PERSONNEL] Mayotte, pearl in reverse

Our compatriots… from Mamoudzou or Pamandzi. Our compatriots… from Petite-Terre and Grande-Terre. Our compatriots from Mayotte…, there is everything. Like you and me. French. Like us. And maybe even a little more than some of us. Because if they became French just fifty years ago, in 1974, they wanted it, they wanted it, they decided it, they voted for it. In 1976, challenged to confirm or deny this strange madness, they solemnly reiterated their choice and, cutting the link with their enemy brothers from the three other islands of the Comoros archipelago, moored their modest kwassa kwassa to the liner France whose pasha of the moment, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, was kind enough to take them in tow. They are still there.

It must be said that their “yes” to France, ratified by Paris by virtue of the right of peoples to self-determination but contested by the UN and the African Union in the name of the intangibility of borders and The territorial integrity of the Comorian State came at the wrong time and against the current of the principles and realities of the time. This annexation by France of an African land, in the atmosphere of the 20th^e century ending, clashed singularly with the principles and the balance of power which then prevailed, and very precisely with the tidal wave of decolonization which had seen the peoples of Asia and Africa subjugated by Western expansionism liberate the the white man, sometimes by arms, sometimes by means of amicable separations, from the supposed burden he had put on his back.

The attachment of Mayotte to the French Republic, even if it conformed to the wishes of its population, therefore went against what was generally considered at the time to be the meaning of History, an eminently plastic concept which is very often only the translation complacent of the right of the strongest. The Mahorese exception went against the dominant idea according to which the relationship between the peoples of the Third World and the developed countries could only be based on the aggression, submission and exploitation of the former by the latter. In this case, the attachment of the small island to France corresponded to voluntary accession, through a free and peaceful vote, and obviously presupposed the aid and assistance of the metropolis to its last and well modest expansion.

A balance sheet where the positive and the negative are inextricably mixed

What has resulted, half a century later? The meteorological cataclysm which has just struck the Comoros archipelago, largely sparing Mohéli, Moroni and Anjouan, and devastating Mayotte, was a dramatic opportunity to draw up an assessment where the positive and the negative are inextricably mixed.

Are the Mahorais truly full-fledged French people or largely separate French people? Between Mozambique and Madagascar, a modest islet whose size hardly exceeds that of Oléron or Ré, Mayotte twice appeared distant. Geographically but also emotionally. Out of sight, but perhaps also out of mind. Has France – and by this we mean not only the State but also the French – truly understood and assumed the responsibility it took when it adopted Mayotte?

Poverty, if Aznavour's song is to be believed, is perhaps less painful in the sun. It came to light in the grim wake of Cyclone Chido. Mayotte hands down wins the little envied title of “poorest department in France”, with a per capita income seven times lower than that of the mainland, three times lower than that of Martinique. A distressing situation for which comparison with that of the rest of the Comoros, eight times poorer, or Madagascar, twenty times more miserable (!), cannot console. The deprivation of some does not bring happiness to others. The State, unable to count the living and the dead, had to pitifully recognize that between a quarter and a third of the local population was made up of illegal Comorians who, if they opted with their ballots for the independence, vote with their feet for attachment to France, which proves as incapable of pushing them back as of integrating them. France, the fifth world power fifty years ago, the seventh today, did not know how, that is to say, did not want to, ensure the prosperity and security of those who placed their trust in it. has been proven unworthy.

Words not up to par

The words and behavior of the characters who, institutionally, embody our country have not been up to the tragedy experienced by the Mahorais – those, at least, who have not been buried under the rubble of their homes or under the landslides.

The Head of State, rushing to the scene of the disaster, believed he could congratulate himself on the luck that the inhabitants of Mayotte have in being able to count on France. It was neither the day nor the place to ensure this to unfortunate people without shelter, without food and without water. As for the Prime Minister, who was beginning his new role, he initially considered it more urgent to chair his municipal council in Pau than to travel to Mayotte. It is true that the national mourning, belatedly declared, had been eclipsed and shortened by his own appointment. The impromptu visit of François Bayrou and his main ministers this weekend to the scene of the disaster is an admission, a clumsy attempt at repair and recovery. It does not constitute an answer.

The example of Notre-Dame de Paris must inspire our leaders, if the word is adapted to the situation. The momentum of private charity and the establishment of a special organization solely dedicated to the restoration of the martyred cathedral enabled the miracle of reopening on time.

The problem is different. It is not stones here, however venerable, however linked to our History they may be, who are at issue, but men and women, French like us, who are suffering and waiting. Mayotte needs to be rebuilt, but certainly not identically, in sheet metal and concrete blocks. It must once again become the pearl of the Indian Ocean, one of the rare jewels that Marianne, failing heir to the necklace that kings and republics had ginned around the planet, can still fasten to her bodice. And if popular solidarity, as it seems, is not there, it is up to public finances, and urgently, to repair the damage caused by the violence of nature and the carelessness of men. At all costs.