By John Eligon, Julie Bourdin and Aurelien Breeden
The hills flanking the harbor of the small French territory of Mayotte have turned into desolate heaps of bare, uprooted trees. Capsized sailboats litter the shores, immersed in the balmy waters of the Indian Ocean.
Heaps of mangled metal, bricks, insulation, and various debris clutter the narrow, steep lanes of Mamoudzou, this archipelago’s capital along Africa’s eastern coast. In the midst of the devastation brought by Cyclone Chido, which hit last weekend, some locals were seen sitting on the sidewalk during a downpour on Thursday, placing buckets to collect rainwater, now a precious resource with taps dry since the storm.
“Tell Macron that God blessed us with water,” shouted a shirtless man, raising his arms toward the French President Emmanuel Macron, who had just arrived to survey the damage.
While residents sift through the wreckage, where dozens have been confirmed dead and thousands may still be unaccounted for, the extremely impoverished territory of Mayotte is drawing rare international attention and igniting fresh debates about its status as a part of France.
More than 150 years post-colonization, Mayotte, primarily consisting of two larger islands and several smaller ones with a population of about 320,000, stands as the poorest area in France, grappling with significant social issues.
The poverty rate in Mayotte approaches 80%, considerably higher than the mainland’s rate of about 16%. The unemployment rate hovers around 40%, in comparison to roughly 7% for the rest of France. Some people are employed in fishing and agriculture, while others work in small businesses within the informal economy; a portion is employed by the state.
Approximately 30% of the residents lack access to running water at home, a situation worsened by last year’s drought.
Certain aid workers and analysts have remarked that the government has been unable to manage the rapidly increasing population or provide necessary services. Other individuals contend that the government has largely neglected the island, which lies about 5,000 miles from mainland France and takes a 12-hour flight to reach from Paris.
In the cyclone’s aftermath, Macron has pledged support for the devastated community.
At the airport and later at the hospital on Thursday, Macron was welcomed by countless concerned residents and weary medical professionals who briefed him on ruined homes, electricity outages, dwindling food and medicine supplies, and empty gas stations — along with fears of a grim toll.
Clad in a white shirt and a traditional local scarf, Macron was also taken on a helicopter tour over the destruction. He repeatedly assured them that aid was on the way and stated that a field hospital would be operational by Friday.
For some inhabitants of Mayotte, the concern and expressions of unity from mainland France — along with Macron’s visit — feel empty after what they perceive as decades of neglect and discrimination.
“It won’t change anything for us,” remarked Sarah Moilimo, 35, a teacher now sheltering around 25 individuals who lost their homes in her residence in Mamoudzou, regarding Macron’s visit. “What we need is for him to take action,” she stated. “Over the past few months, he has dispatched many ministers to Mayotte, yet nothing ever alters.”
Macron dismissed claims that the French state had abandoned Mayotte, making sweeping promises of recovery during his visit. “We managed to reconstruct our cathedral in five years,” Macron noted, alluding to the recent reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. “It would be a tragedy if we were unable to restore Mayotte.”
Despite Mayotte being part of France, its residents do not receive all the same benefits as those living on the mainland and are subject to different laws.
In Mayotte, families are not eligible for certain childbirth and education grants that are available almost throughout the rest of France.
Mayotte is among just two French departments, the fundamental administrative units within regions, where state representatives can forcibly remove residents and demolish illegal housing without obtaining a court order. Although the law mandates that the government must provide appropriate alternative housing, this frequently fails to happen, according to aid organizations.
The informal settlements targeted by the local government’s demolition initiatives were severely impacted by the storm, with many completely destroyed. Many residents of these informal settlements are believed to be undocumented migrants.
The inequalities faced by Mayotte are, in some respects, a remnant of the French colonial period.
Having been colonized in 1843, Mayotte only became a French department — which creates a local authority to manage social services and infrastructure — in 2011. It is the most recent department in the nation, and some civil society advocates assert that government officials are still struggling to bring the island’s services and infrastructure up to date amidst rapid population growth.
Moilimo, the educator in Mamoudzou, stated she relocated to Mayotte about a year and a half ago after spending her entire life in Marseille to reconnect with her African roots. She believed Mayotte would provide a suitable environment where she could still maintain the salary and lifestyle she had experienced in France.
“It’s nothing like France at all,” she said, expressing astonishment at the disparities between Mayotte and the mainland.
Although salaries in Mayotte are significantly lower, prices are considerably higher, she explained. The education system in Mayotte is so overwhelmed that many students perform well below their grade level. Some students only have the capacity to attend school for half a day due to the teacher shortage.
One reason for the high casualty rate in Mayotte may be that cyclones are so infrequent that residents often lack knowledge of the proper safety measures, according to Eric Sam-Vah, the deputy head of the Piroi Center, a disaster management agency associated with the French Red Cross.
Though French officials have forecast a large death toll, residents have voiced grievances over the sluggish government rescue and recovery efforts, which in some instances have been non-existent. During a Thursday stroll through many battered areas of the capital, there was no sign of a government rescue operation.
During his tour, Macron acknowledged that in numerous shantytowns, searches for victims, both injured and deceased, had not yet been performed, but he stated that officials were intensifying their efforts to locate victims in these areas.
In many instances, residents of Mayotte have had to rely on each other to endure.
After Cyclone Chido ripped off the roof of his two-story villa, Mickael Damour, 47, was forced to hide in a bathroom cupboard for safety. He later emerged to find roads blocked with debris, rendering it impossible for him and his neighbors to leave, and they were compelled to seek shelter in a school. Damour, a dialysis nurse, stated he utilized his professional expertise to provide care for neighbors who could not reach the hospital.
“I treated wounds for two consecutive days, nonstop,” he said. “We don’t see much assistance from the French government.”
