The Mayotte archipelago, hit by a devastating cyclone, cannot be rebuilt “without addressing the migration issue”, said the resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau on Tuesday, December 17, calling for “legislation” on this subject. “The State has been mobilized from the start to help the victims and prevent other crises from adding to the misfortune, but we must already think about the day after,” he wrote on his X account.
“We will not be able to rebuild Mayotte without addressing, with the greatest determination, the migration issue,” he adds, believing that the Indian Ocean archipelago is “the symbol of the drift that governments have left behind. 'install on this issue'. “We will have to legislate so that in Mayotte, as everywhere on the national territory, France regains control of its immigration,” he concludes.
“An indecent obsessive”
Mayotte, the poorest department in France, officially has 320,000 inhabitants, “but it is estimated that there are 100,000 to 200,000 more people, taking into account illegal immigration”, a source told AFP on Monday. close to the authorities. Nearly half of the population is made up of immigrants from neighboring Comoros or other African countries, according to INSEE.
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Bruno Retailleau's statement sparked strong reactions on the left. “Journalists ask me why I make the presence of Bruno Retailleau in the government a red line? Just read his tweets,” commented Marine Tondelier. “Bruno Retailleau is an indecent and inconsistent obsessive,” replied Olivier Faure. “The Mahorais are counting their deaths, and the Minister of the Interior finds nothing better to do than to sink into pure ignominy,” also castigated the president of the La France insoumise (LFI) group Mathilde Panot, on X always.
Cyclone Chido devastated this Indian Ocean territory on Saturday, where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing. For now, the official death toll stands at 21 hospital deaths, but the authorities fear “several hundred” deaths, perhaps even “a few thousand”. A race against time is underway to help the victims of the archipelago, where water and food are lacking and whose only hospital has been damaged. A curfew will be introduced this Tuesday evening from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., for security reasons, in order to avoid looting while residents lack everything.
