If the deadline of May 11 remains pending in mainland France, it has already been pushed back to Mayotte. "We have chosen to postpone the deconfinement," said Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Monday May 4 when he presented his deconfinement strategy to the Senate. A "point" will be made on May 14 "to consider the relaxation of confinement and in particular the return to primary school on May 18," he added.

"The extension of confinement is the only way to avoid saturation of a hospital system already in great demand by the dengue epidemic, which is also fatal for the Mahorais," said the head of government. Mayotte, which "has just gone into phase 3", counted Monday 686 cases, including 6 people in intensive care and seven deaths, according to the prefecture. The last death was that of the imam of the great mosque of Mamoudzou.

"The virus is actively circulating throughout the territory, in all villages and in all environments," warns the Mayotte Regional Health Agency (ARS), which again and again calls for compliance with containment measures while signs of loosening are felt.

"Today, it (confinement) works less well, because half of the population is under 18 years old," analyzed Monday evening the prefect of Mayotte, Jean-François Colombet, on the Mayotte chain the 1st, specifying that the curfew would be maintained. He pointed out that several hundred people went to mosques and that "murengué" (traditional Mahoran boxing) rallies continued to develop.

Prohibitions on arrival in the overseas territories

Before the senators, Édouard Philippe also announced that the bans on arrival in the overseas territories would be maintained "beyond May 11", but that a progress report would be made "in early June". "Only people with compelling family or professional reasons or a health obligation will be able to go overseas" and they "will remain subject to the fourteen obligation," said the Prime Minister.

Édouard Philippe specified that the government would take advantage of "the deconfinement to organize the return home of the overseas students who expressed the wish". Sunday, the Minister of Overseas, Annick Girardin, had announced that those which would return would be placed in "centers of fourteen", either while arriving on their territory, or in metropolis before their departure. Each year, 40,000 overseas students come to study in France.

With AFP

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