For the first time in his term, President Emmanuel Macron is traveling to French Polynesia.
He inaugurated on Monday in Manihi (Tuesday in Paris), in the Tuamotu archipelago, the construction of a cyclone shelter, noted an AFP journalist.
Sunday (Monday in Paris), the Head of State went to the Marquesas to mark the first visit of a President of the Republic to this archipelago.
In Manihi, this cyclone shelter is crucial on this atoll of 600 inhabitants, which rises to five meters and where waves of more than ten meters can fall in the event of a cyclone.
In addition, global warming increases the frequency and power of cyclones.
"Our paradise can quickly turn into hell", warned the mayor of Manihi, John Drollet, citing "waves of 12 meters in the worst case".
"We are talking about your lives, the lives of your children, we are talking about today, not tomorrow," replied the President of the Republic.
He announced a € 50 million program funded equally by France and French Polynesia, a largely autonomous overseas collectivity.
Emmanuel Macron receives many necklaces of flowers and shells upon his arrival in the Tuamotus pic.twitter.com/jrRJwRqFHq
- BFMTV (@BFMTV) July 27, 2021
The Tuamotus are already equipped with 27 shelters, but 8,000 inhabitants are not yet protected and 17 shelters must be built by 2027.
The old cyclone shelters deteriorated rapidly.
This is why those which are now built also accommodate a building used on a daily basis and maintained: the town hall, or a school, as will be the case in Manihi.
It will be the only multi-storey building in the atoll, and the entire population will be able to find refuge there when a cyclone approaches.
Traditional ceremony and show in the Marquesas
The day before his visit to the Tuamotu archipelago, Emmanuel Macron was in the Marquesas, a first for a President of the Republic.
He expressed his support for the candidacy of this archipelago for Unesco World Heritage.
For this historic occasion, the Marquesans offered Sunday evening (Monday morning in Paris) a rare spectacle to the Head of State - a traditional ceremony of 600 dancers and musicians from the six Marquesan islands, dressed in vegetable outfits made from auti, tapered leaves.
The only man in a suit in the middle of the Atuona stadium, the main town of Hiva Oa, Emmanuel Macron was greeted by riders in combat gear and by a vibrant Mave Mai, a song recited by a soloist.
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"Our part of French identity is wanted and assumed: we are Marquesans, Polynesians, French, and we are proud of it, Mr. President," said the mayor of Hiva Oa, Joëlle Frébault.
She then baptized the head of state with a Marquesan name: "Te Hakaiki Taha'oa", "the great chief who walks and who goes far".
Emmanuel Macron was then acclaimed for having started his speech by greeting, with a few words in Marquesan, each island of the archipelago.
"Our treasure is this nature and this culture", "so I will fight by your side so that we can classify the Marquesas Islands at Unesco", he announced.
The president thus supports the initiative of the local authorities who have embarked for several years in the long procedure to obtain the Unesco label.
Arriving in the Marquesas Islands, the president visited the graves, under the frangipani trees, of the two great artists: the painter Paul Gauguin, who died in 1903, and the singer Jacques Brel, who died in 1978.
Emmanuel Macron defends the "case by case" on wind and solar projects
Traveling in Polynesia, Emmanuel Macron also spoke about wind and solar energy.
"You have to know how to adapt or give up" wind turbine projects "on a case-by-case basis", which "create too much tension, distort the landscape, because sometimes it happens", he argued in an interview with franceinfo broadcast Tuesday, July 27, believing that it was necessary to succeed in "reconciling this pragmatism with our climate ambition".
"There are places where solar and wind energy projects are well coordinated, well thought out, fit into the landscape (and which) are accepted by the population and also make it possible to develop economic returns", a-t he greeted, encouraging to go in that direction.
He also underlined the "ultra-marine strategy which is to massively develop renewable energy because it is a strategy of sovereignty" in overseas territories such as Polynesia.
The head of state was then to return to Tahiti for a meeting with business leaders.
He plans to return to France on July 28.
With AFP
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