The Right to Housing (DAL) association called on the government on Sunday to stop the so-called “Wuambushu” operation initiated in Mayotte to stem crime and illegal immigration. France plans to dislodge irregular migrants from the slums of Mayotte and deport undocumented migrants, most of whom are Comorians, to Anjouan, the nearest Comorian island located 70 km away.
The government has not given a launch or end date for this “Wuambushu” (“recovery” in Mahorais) operation. But some 1,800 police and gendarmes, including hundreds of metropolitan reinforcements, are already mobilized in the small archipelago in the Indian Ocean. In its press release, the DAL calls for an end to the “anti-poor” operation which “confirms a new regression in the housing policies of the working classes: we reduce insalubrity either by relocating the inhabitants of informal neighborhoods, but by stigmatizing them to better justify their expulsion”.
Operation on an unprecedented scale
This operation “of an unprecedented scale in France for a century”, according to the DAL, risks “breaking families” and throwing them “into great misery”, fears the association. She is also concerned about an exceptional measure provided for in the law of November 22, 2018 on housing. According to its article 197, “in Mayotte and Guyana, when premises or facilities built without right or title constitute an informal habitat (…) and present serious risks for health, safety or public tranquility” the prefect can by decree order the occupants to evacuate the premises and the owners to proceed with their demolition.
“The prefect must however respect certain conditions”, underlines the DAL, such as “display the decree one month in advance, on the dwellings concerned and in the town hall, to which is annexed a proposal for rehousing or accommodation for the occupants”. However, the DAL considers that Mayotte “does not have sufficient means of rehousing or even accommodation in view of the number of evictions/destructions envisaged”.