Five days after the devastating passage of Cyclone Chido, the President of the Republic arrived on the island this Thursday, December 19 in the morning. Supposed to leave during the day, he announced that he would stay until Friday to go to the “bangas”.
Five days after the devastating and deadly passage of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte, Emmanuel Macron announced this Thursday, December 19, a “national mourning for this Monday, December 23.” “We all share the pain of the Mahorais”, said the head of state on X. “Our flags will be at half-mast. All French people will be invited to worship at 11 a.m. he added from the French archipelago in the Indian Ocean. “It is likely that there are many more victims” that the 31 “officially counted to date”, he told the press. “We will be able to identify additional victims, give them a name, be able to pay tribute to them” thanks to the census mission set up by the prefect with mayors and religious authorities, he added.
Earlier, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted “rebuild” Mayotte, announcing the arrival of a “special law” to facilitate the reconstruction of the department with new “criteria”. “In the long term, we want there to be no more of these slums.” also indicated the head of state. And to take the same very right-handed path as Bruno Retailleau: “Everyone must accept that in terms of skills and rules, we change things” et “strengthen the fight against illegal immigration, at the same time as we obviously re-establish schools, rebuild homes, rebuild hospitals, etc.,” he told journalists in Mamoudzou.
“I can’t let it be said […] that the State would have resigned here”added the President of the Republic, upon discovering the damage in a district of Mamoudzou, the capital of the department. “We are going to set up a compensation fund to support those who are not insured”he added, without specifying the amount. During an exchange with elected officials, the Head of State announced the supply of “all municipalities with water and food by Sunday evening at the latest”specifying that for this purpose it would be carried out “helicopter drops”.
Arriving in Mayotte in the morning, the President announced shortly after noon to extend his stay by one day on the Indian Ocean archipelago. “I will go to les waves tomorrow morning”said Emmanuel Macron about these precarious habitats, where almost a third of the population lived before the cyclone and which were largely destroyed. It must also reach areas further inland, far from the capital Mamoudzou, said the Elysée. Upon his arrival Thursday morning, the head of state was questioned by Mahorais asking him to stay longer than a single day.
«Mahorais, we will get back together”the President of the Republic had declared shortly before, in a message published on X (formerly Twitter). Alongside the Head of State, a small delegation also arrived to help those affected by the disaster: around twenty doctors, nurses, logisticians and civil security personnel as well as four tonnes of food and health freight.
State of “exceptional natural calamity”
After an aerial reconnaissance of the disaster area, Emmanuel Macron must go to the Mamoudzou hospital center (CHM) and speak with the nursing staff and the patients in care. He will then go “in a destroyed neighborhood, in contact with the emergency services” mobilized since the most intense cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years.
Five days after the storm, the government has just declared the state of “exceptional natural calamity», planned for at least one month by the government. The blocking of consumer prices was also put in place via a decree, published this Thursday morning in the Official Journal.
Questioned on RTL this Thursday morning, the resigning Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq, assured that the government “does everything possible” to transport water to populations affected by Cyclone Chido in Mayotte, and that the supply will be quickly “more fluid”. In a letter addressed to party leaders and the presidents of the two chambers, François Bayrou described the passage of the cyclone as “biggest natural disaster in France in recent centuries”.
According to provisional figures, 31 deaths and some 1,400 injured have been officially recorded, but the authorities fear a much higher toll in France’s poorest department. The prefect therefore ordered “a mission to search for the dead”according to the Ministry of the Interior, which emphasizes that “70% of residents were seriously affected”.
Updated at 6:41 p.m. with the addition of Emmanuel Macron’s statements on victims and slums.
