MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron justified on Friday controversial remarks made the day before during a tense face-to-face with residents of Mayotte by believing he had defended a France insulted by “people” from the National Rally.
Without France, “you would be 10,000 times more in trouble”, the Head of State said on Thursday evening to the people of Mahor, accusing him of being abandoned by the State since the passage of Cyclone Chido last weekend. remarks deemed unworthy by the opposition.
During these exchanges, Emmanuel Macron was sharply attacked with cries of “Macron resign!” or “Water, water, water!” by a population deprived of the scale of the damage.
In an interview given to media in the archipelago before his departure for Djibouti on Friday, he declared that he had encountered “people from the National Rally who (…) insulted France”.
“When we insult (France), the president gets angry,” he said, adding: “I know the impatience of the population (…), I have heard this impatience (…) , we respond to it point by point and therefore life will change in the coming days.”
The death toll from the devastating passage of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte rose to at least 35 dead, 67 seriously injured and 2,432 lightly injured, the Interior Ministry announced on Friday.
“The number of deaths does not correspond to the reality of the 100,000 people who live in precarious housing. The prefect therefore ordered the sub-prefect to set up a mission to search for the dead; 70% of the inhabitants were seriously affected,” added the ministry.
In a statement, it also said that electricity was “being restored” and that “the restart of non-potable water is restored”.
“The water treatment plants are generally functional despite significant material damage,” he adds, indicating that “50% of the water will be restored within 48 hours and 95% within 7 days.”
Some 32,000 liters of water were delivered by air on Friday.
A CMA CGM container ship was to deliver 1.6 million liters of water on the evening of December 22 and again on December 29.
(Tassilo Hummel and Paris office, written by Augustin Turpin and Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Sophie Louet)