In Mayotte, where the feeling of insecurity is very strong, mayors, parliamentarians, departmental advisers and collectives of citizens denounced, this Thursday, a situation of “unprecedented seriousness”. In the process, they launched an “dead island” operation from September 15 and “until further notice”. In this island located in the Indian Ocean between East Africa and Madagascar, a regular scene of clashes between gangs or with the police, crime is high, much higher than in mainland France. 20 minutes takes stock of this operation, which comes a few weeks after the visit of the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Gérald Damarnin and after a meeting of elected officials at the Elysée, with the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron.
What has been happening since Thursday in Mayotte?
The elected officials of the archipelago of Mayotte, 101st French department where the far right had clearly come out on top in the presidential election, decided to close primary schools and local administrations on Thursday and “until further notice”. Faced with a situation of “unprecedented seriousness”, mayors, parliamentarians, departmental advisers and collectives of citizens have therefore decided on an operation “dead island” from September 15, promising a return “to normal as soon as the situation will be appeased and structural solutions found so that peace, security, serenity and public tranquility return”.
In the process, the association of mayors indicated in its press release that it had asked the Departmental Council to “take all the necessary measures so that no school transport runs from this Thursday”.
Why is this “dead island” operation criticized?
That mayors ask “that no school transport circulate as of this Thursday” annoys the Federation of Parents’ Councils (FCPE) which is worried about the impact on students, considering that “the interest superior of the children” was “not to be sacrificed”.
On the island, where the average age of the population is 23, compared to 41 in mainland France and where public transport does not exist, many students should indeed be unable to go to college or in high school. “Mayotte is one of the poorest territories in France, a territory where children and adults no longer feel safe. It is up to the State (…) to quickly find solutions to a situation that has lasted too long,” said the FCPE in a press release.
Reacting Wednesday morning on the local channel Kwezi TV, the prefect of Mayotte, Thierry Suquet, for his part, assured to understand “the exasperation of the population” but called to “not leave the street to the delinquents”. “We feel that behind these agitations, we want the police, the gendarmerie, the justice system and the State, like the communities, to be weakened. Let’s not let go, this is not the time to close, to capitulate, ”pleaded the prefect.
Mayotte, an island plagued by violence?
The feeling of insecurity is very strong in Mayotte, an archipelago of nearly 400,000 inhabitants which saw its population quadruple between 1985 and 2017. In an analysis of November 2021, INSEE noted that “nearly half of people feel in insecurity often or from time to time, at home or in their neighbourhood, i.e. five to six times more than the inhabitants of France”.
Mayotte is indeed regularly shaken by outbreaks of violence between rival gangs or against the police, when they intervene to put an end to it. In 2021, the Mamoudzou public prosecutor’s office had thus recorded a 25% increase in referrals for criminal acts on the island and 21% for misdemeanors. Four times more complaints for burglaries than in mainland France are also recorded there and physical attacks are much more frequent there. Insecurity fueled by great poverty: 194,000 Mahorais, or 74% of the population, live with a standard of living below 50% of the national median, according to INSEE.
Already at the beginning of September, fights and crowd movements had enamelled the concert of the rapper Niska which had taken place in the capital Mamoudzou. The latter had degenerated into a riot, causing a dozen minor injuries, according to police sources. After nearly two hours of clashes, two people were arrested. In February, overwhelmed by insecurity, residents had blocked access to their neighborhood for several days and tried to obstruct traffic routes.
Visiting Mayotte at the end of August, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had, for his part, indicated that the police and the gendarmes had mentioned “aside from minors aged 11, 10, 9 years old who had machetes , axes, which attacked the police and the gendarmes”. Finally, the French department has experienced a wave of violence in recent days, with roadblocks, clashes between rival gangs and with the police, school buses and vehicles being stoned.
What are the government’s proposals?
Overseas elected officials had asked last May to discuss with the State “a profound change in policy” for development aid in their poverty-stricken territories. At the beginning of September, Emmanuel Macron received around fifty elected officials from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy, Guyana, Réunion and Mayotte. The president “wanted to emphasize security (…) the fight against the high cost of living (…) and the influence of this French archipelago with enhanced regional cooperation”, then commented the Elysée in a press release.
The executive immediately let it be known that it wanted to give elected overseas officials “the necessary leeway to invent tailor-made solutions” to the problems of security and high cost of living, which affect these territories. For her part, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne confided that she was going to hold an interministerial committee for Overseas Territories (CIOM) “within six months” to act on this basis for a first series of decisions.
Earlier, in mid-August, the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, announced the creation of a closed educational center (CEF) in Mayotte. “This new establishment will offer a dedicated educational offer, thought of as an alternative to incarceration, for minors most rooted in delinquency”, explained the ministry in a press release. Its commissioning is scheduled for the end of 2024.
Finally, Gérald Darmanin, visiting Mayotte at the end of August, had already announced that he was going to make proposals to open “places of re-education and recovery” for juvenile offenders, supervised by soldiers. In addition, the minister also asked the director general of the national police “to study the possibility of using intermediate weapons, which we used here when there were riots, when the Raid came”, during scuffles involving minors. Finally, he presented the new air and maritime means of combating illegal immigration.
It should be noted that the Court of Auditors recently denounced the fact that in Mayotte, the authorities did not meet the expectations of the Mahorais “on the social, economic and societal levels” and recommended that they work with regional actors to fight against corruption. illegal immigration and secure development prospects. Already in 2016, the Court of Auditors had already noted the insufficient preparation for the departmentalization of Mayotte in 2011, a “poorly piloted” institutional reform, which, although unrelated to the crises that the archipelago is going through, “does not have any hardly facilitated the resolution”.