Illegal immigration and economic development are on the agenda of Emmanuel Macron's visit to Mayotte. The head of state arrived Tuesday, October 22, on this 101st French department, located 8,000 kilometers from the Hexagon between Madagascar and Mozambique. There, 48% of the 256,500 inhabitants are foreigners - 95% of Comorians, some of them in an irregular situation - according to INSEE.
The attraction for this island dates back to its maintenance discussed in France by referendum in 1974, when at the same time the other three islands of the Comoros archipelago, to which belonged Mayotte, Mohéli, Anjouan and Grande-Comore, obtained their independence.
Mayotte becomes an Eldorado of the region and quickly attracts thousands of Comorians and Africans. The island - French since 2011 - is a base for people of the Union of the Comoros, ranked by the World Bank 23rd among the poorest nations in the world in 2018. On board makeshift craft, the kwassas-kwassas, they try each year at the risk of their lives to tread the French soil. A report from the French Senate estimated in 2012 that these crossings had caused "between 7,000 and 10,000 deaths since 1995".
In the same report, the parliamentarians explain that the illegal immigrant population living in Mayotte "could rise between 50,000 and 60,000 people [...] is about one third of the official population of Mayotte". A situation that generates tensions with the Mahorais, who hold illegal immigrants responsible for the main insecurity on the island and denounce the powerlessness of public authorities, as explained to France 24 the mayor of Boueni, Daniel Martial Henry , in 2016: "The bottom of the problem is illegal immigration, even the police are outdated. You only have to see how many people come here every day with boats, at least a hundred. These are the problem in Mayotte. "
Law of the ground and "Shikandra operation"
Pushed to its climax, this mistrust of foreigners in Mayotte has pushed people to meet in "collective" to expel foreigners from their village, whether they are in a regular situation or not, actions condemned by the Cimade Association in 2016.
Focus - Mayotte, a French department in deadlock
When he arrived in Mayotte on Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron said that "the first objective (at his visit) is to provide extremely concrete answers to these difficulties." And to specify that "several answers had already been made in recent months" The President of the Republic seems here to refer to at least two measures put in place for over a year to limit illegal immigration in the overseas department.
One of these measures is the limitation of land rights in Mayotte, which has come into force since March. This provision, voted in the context of the controversial asylum-immigration bill, modifies the attribution of French nationality: where a child born on the French territory of a foreign parent is in principle French by birth, a child born in Mayotte will now have nationality if one of his parents was in a legal situation three months before his birth. This provision sparked turmoil among left-wing parliamentarians but also within The Republic on the move.
The government took another step last August: the "Operation Shikandra" to strengthen security off the coast of Mahor. In order to "sustainably meet the migration challenge in Mayotte", as explained by the Minister of Overseas Annick Girardin, this device has similarities with the European Frontex: Border police boats (PAF) are responsible for patrol to prevent kwassas-kwassas from landing on Mahoran soil.
The goal is to bring 25,000 people back to the border by the end of the year, compared with 15,000 in 2018. Twenty-two thousand have been for the moment, according to the Elysée, which has a policy of "Firmness" vis-à-vis illegal immigration. Shortly after his arrival in Mayotte, Emmanuel Macron has also illustrated this policy by boarding an interceptor ship of the PAF.
With AFP