The Minister for Overseas Territories calls for going further than the current provisions on Mahorais territory which already derogate from land law. Manuel Valls intends to support a proposed LR law to tighten up the granting of French nationality to children born in Mayotte.
Less than a month after Cyclone Chido which devastated Mayotte, there is harm on the ground. Overseas Minister Manuel Valls hopes to largely modify this access to French nationality for children born on Mahoran soil.
“We must restrict access to land law,” ruled the former Prime Minister this Sunday, February 13 on BFMTV, calling for “act without taboo in the most general consensus.”
An already limited land right
Since 2018 and the asylum-immigration law defended by Gérard Collomb then Minister of the Interior, an exemption already exists in Mayotte, which restricts the possibility of becoming French for children born on the archipelago. One of the parents must, on the day of the birth, have been regularly present in France for three months.
Since then, the situation has hardly changed in the 101st French department. As of January 1, 2024, the INSEE statistics institute estimated the population of Mayotte at 321,000 people. And according to the prefecture of Mayotte, cited in an information report of the National Assembly in May 2023, just under 50% of the population is of foreign nationality.
“Between a third and half of the population would be in an irregular situation,” according to the prefecture. The phenomenon puts schools and the hospital system under great pressure.
“Look at what the right says”
At the start of 2024, roadblocks paralyzed traffic and economic life in the archipelago to denounce insecurity and the migration crisis. Enough to push the government to raise its voice on the matter.
“We can go even further in this area,” urges Manuel Valls, calling in particular to “look at what the right is saying.”
The LR deputies will take advantage of their parliamentary niche on February 6 – this day which allows them to debate the texts they want in the hemicycle – to try to pass a bill on Mayotte.
It proposes to go much further than what has existed since 2018 by allowing access to French nationality for children born in Mayotte on the condition that both parents are present regularly on French soil for at least one year. .
“Act on false paternity certificates”
Manuel Valls adds a possibility which is not mentioned by the right, that of acting “on false certificates of paternity”.
If the legal arsenal to fight against these false certificates already exists, it seems little used in Mayotte. Former LR MP for Mayotte Mansour Kamardine has already mentioned on BFMTV the fact that in Mayotte, residents present themselves “two or three times a year to enter into a civil partnership, without checking that the previous civil partnership has been dissolved”. allowing a “recognition of fictitious paternity”, as a parliamentary report puts forward.
The position of the Minister for Overseas Territories has broad consensus within government ranks. During his visit to the archipelago at the end of December, François Bayrou judged that “the question of land law was a question that had to be asked”.
Towards a law dedicated to immigration in Mayotte
The Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau and the Minister of Defense Sébastien Lecornu, for their part, signed a joint column with Manuel Valls in Le Figaro on January 5, sharing their assent.
The only discordant voice: that of Élisabeth Borne, now Minister of National Education, who had largely distanced herself from her colleagues on BFMTV the same day.
After François Bayrou's general policy speech this Tuesday, the deputies will immediately consider the special bill to rebuild Mayotte. A second text should then arrive in the hemicycle specifically devoted to migration issues in the archipelago.
