The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet continues her visit to Mayotte, the 101st French department wedged between Mozambique and Madagascar. Among the themes raised during this trip, the problem of water, security, immigration and the situation of unaccompanied minors.
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From our special correspondent in Mayotte, Pierrick Bonno
Arriving in Mayotte, we quickly realize the state of tension which reigns by observing the state of certain gendarmerie vehicles. The bodies are riddled with impacts, the windshields cracked. Everything testifies to the daily pressure that reigns on the island. Three deaths last month in fights between young people. School buses are regularly targeted, motorists extorted by young minors who act in gangs. This is the daily life of residents here in Mayotte.
The situation had greatly improved with theWambushu operation triggered in April 2023 by the Ministry of the Interior, but since most of the reinforcements of law enforcement returned to mainland France, the violence has resumed.
Read alsoIn Mayotte, towards a resumption of operation “Wuambushu”?
There is also a water crisis which affects all the Mahorais, with the worst drought the island has experienced in twenty-five years. The water has therefore been cut off two days out of three since the fall. The State had to urgently set up a distribution of bottled water ensured by firefighters and civil security. Good news for the Mahorais, it has rained in recent weeks and the restrictions will ease. The prefecture announces that from Monday January 15, the water will only be cut off every other day in Mayotte.
The school is overwhelmed
Another object of tension: school. In Mayotte, there are many more students to be educated than there are places in schools. Results: classes are overcrowded and several thousand foreign Comorian minors, for the most part, find themselves out of school, left to their own devices and sometimes fall into delinquency.
Associations are trying to take over, as in the Kawéni slum where around ten children are learning the basics of French thanks to the ACékB association. No equipment, the walls are decrepit, but Djénéva, 11 years old, who arrived a few months ago from Madagascar, knows that she is lucky to have a teacher in front of her.
We are not in a school, but in the premises of one of the associations which takes over from the schools which are overwhelmed by requests for registration from children coming from neighboring Africa, mainly Comorians.
Report from Mamoutzou on the island of Mayotte by Pierrick Bonno
The French government must present a bill specific to Mayotte by the end of 2024. Parent-teacher associations hope that the subject of school will be a priority.
High illegal immigration
Few people do not attribute these ills to illegal immigration. This point brings together the three deputies who are accompanying Yaël Braun-Pivet on this trip (two from the centrist Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires (LIOT) group and one LR deputy): Mayotte simply cannot cope with the arrival of thousands of migrants, mainly from neighboring Comoros, each year.
The archipelago is located only 70 km from Mayotte. They arrive every day by the dozen on kwassa, makeshift boats risking their lives. Here again, Operation Wambushu had almost put a stop to these arrivals by sea with 8,500 arrests last year. But since the fall, the flows have resumed, although fewer than before, but illegal migrants still arrive on board their boats.
The expectations of the Mahorais
The President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet wishes to pamper local elected officials, to show them that politicians do not abandon them in the face of all their problems. There are therefore many meetings with local elected officials on the agenda for this trip. Some exchanges with the population even if for security reasons, Yael Braun-Pivet is quite constrained in her movements. The people of Mahor did not have very good memories of the last visit of the now ex-Prime Minister. Elisabeth Borne came here in December, but she only stayed on the island for 12 hours.
Conversely, the President of the Assembly takes the time, she was this morning with civil security and the firefighters who ensure the distribution of drinking water. On Friday January 12, she will visit a slum where 75 families live, most of them Comorian.
Read alsoFrance: President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet visits Mayotte