Cyclone in Mayotte: Emmanuel Macron will declare national mourning and will go to the site

Two days after the passage of Cyclone Chido, the Mayotte archipelago is “totally devastated”in the words of Bruno Retailleau, resigning Minister of the Interior who visited the site. Monday, December 16, at the end of the crisis meeting organized at Place Beauvau, the President of the Republic announced that he would do the same “in the coming days in support of our fellow citizens, civil servants and mobilized relief forces”.

In a message published on the X platform (new window)Emmanuel Macron believes that“it’s about facing emergencies and starting to prepare for the future.” The latest official report shows 21 deaths in hospital, 45 injured in absolute emergency and 1,373 injured in relative emergency. But it risks being much heavier: 100,000 people occupied the shanty towns of Mayotte, today reduced to nothing by the storm.

Nine periods of national mourning since 1958

In this context, the Head of State will also declare national mourning “in the face of this tragedy which upsets each of us”. It has not been specified when this period of mourning will occur, nor how long it will last. The last national mourning decided by decree in France dates back to December 9, 2020, after the death of former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Until now, national mourning has been decreed nine times under the Fifth Republic, and even for a period of three days after the attacks of November 13, 2015 and July 14, 2016. On this subject, the government website Vie Publique recalls that “national mourning is not a ceremony, unlike national tribute and national funerals”.