While Cyclone Chido left behind its passage, Saturday December 14, a landscape of desolation in Mayotte, the disaster relaunches the debate around illegal immigration and resurrects tensions with neighboring Comoros.
Taken to task by residents angry at the lack of state aid in this department, the poorest in France, Emmanuel Macron announced upon his arrival on Thursday that he wanted “strengthen the fight against illegal immigration” and increase deportations at the border. A former French colony and department since 2011, the archipelago located in the Indian Ocean has around 320,000 inhabitants according to INSEE, more than half of whom are foreigners, to which must be added an unspecified number of illegal immigrants. The majority of them came from neighboring Comoros and live in shanty towns whose metal sheets have been swept away.
Officially, 31 deaths and some 2,500 injuries were recorded, but “it is likely that there are many more victims”declared Emmanuel Macron on Thursday. The local television channel Mayotte La 1ère reports tens of thousands of victims according to rescuers.
Emmanuel Macron called his Comorian counterpart Azali Assoumani “to discuss the consequences of Chido”indicates the Comorian presidency. Moroni expressed to the French authorities his availability to “send water and food” to help his “brothers and sisters of Mayotte”. “This human drama is first and foremost Comorian. We have no other choice but to stand together.”underlines the presidential spokesperson. As of December 16, two days after the cyclone struck, the Comoros announced that the country was in national mourning for a week, seven days before France.
The previous Wuambushu
But, behind the gestures of solidarity, bitterness is felt. Antoisse Ezidine, director of communications at the general secretariat of the Comorian government, criticizes Paris’s inability to provide the toll of victims of the cyclone and believes that “France’s responsibility is full and complete”.
The remarks of Bruno Retailleau, the Minister of the Interior who resigned on Tuesday, were very poorly received in the Comoros. “We will not be able to rebuild Mayotte without addressing, with the greatest determination, the migration issue”he declared. We need to be “much tougher towards the Comoros”he insisted the next day at the microphone of BFM-TV. Statements “incompatible with the moment”deplores Hamadi Madi Boléro, diplomatic advisor to the Comorian president. While “everyone mourns their dead”the inhabitants of Mayotte especially need a “moral, material and financial support”he said.
The good relations between MM. Macron and Assoumani had already deteriorated during the launch of “Wuambushu” in April 2023 by the French government. This operation aimed to dismantle the slums and fight against « gangs » et “illegal immigration” according to Gérald Darmanin, then Minister of the Interior. But it also aroused the anger of Moroni, who initially refused to welcome the French ships.
Also read the decryption: Article reserved for our subscribers The contrasting results of the “Wuambushu” operation in Mayotte
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In 1974, the Mahorais chose in a referendum to remain within the French fold, unlike the three other islands of the archipelago, which became independent in 1975. This vote was not, however, recognized by the United Nations, which consider that Paris does not respect the unity and territorial integrity of the Comoros. France has been condemned more than 20 times by the UN General Assembly in fifty years.
