A-Infos (en) France, UCL press release: Mayotte: fire to French colonialism (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

New stage in the Macronie-RN convergence: to "fight against 
immigration", the government wants to revise the Constitution to remove 
land rights in Mayotte. This is an obvious breach to break this right 
throughout French territory. It is also yet another reminder of the 
lawless zone that Mayotte represents for the French state, after the 
Wuambushu operation of April 2023 which planned 24,000 expulsions over 
two months, in a climate of xenophobic fury and police violence. .
The situation in Mayotte is dramatic, 77% of residents live below the 
poverty line and the unemployment rate reaches 30%. The archipelago has 
been experiencing an unprecedented water crisis for several months[1]. 
The situation of education[2]and the health system[3]is critical. But 
colonial management obliges: the problem will be immigration.

French Mayotte, the story of a colonial scheme
The undocumented immigrants and the "mass immigration" that Darmanin 
speaks of come almost exclusively from the other islands of the Comoros 
archipelago, with which Mayotte forms the same geographical, historical 
and cultural whole. Mayotte was only very recently separated in its 
history from the other Comorian islands, which came under French 
protectorate in 1886. During the self-determination referendum in 1974, 
the archipelago voted overwhelmingly for independence. In defiance of 
international law, the French state then chose to take into account the 
result island by island, and not the overall result, then to reorganize 
an illegal referendum in Mayotte given that the island had voted against 
independence in 63 .22% during the first. The tricolor flag has been 
maintained there, despite the accession to independence of the rest of 
the Comoros and the protests of the UN, which recognizes in 20 
resolutions since 1975 the sovereignty of the Comoros over the island of 
Mayotte.

This is not without drama. Movement between the islands of the 
archipelago has always existed, even for family reasons, but the 
creation of an artificial border by the French state has made it an 
illegal practice. Since 1995 and the introduction of the "Balladur visa" 
restricting freedom of movement, there have been reports of between 
7,000 and 20,000 deaths at sea[4]on kwassas, traditional fishing boats.

An exceptional French department
Since 2011, Mayotte has been recognized as the 101st French department, 
but without equal rights[5]Le monde, April 27, 2023. Land rights in 
Mayotte are already restricted: residence permits specific to the 
island, no allowance for asylum seekers, no suspension of expulsion in 
the event of a challenge to the Obligation to Leave French Territory 
(OQTF), shorter time limit for submitting an asylum application, no 
State Medical Aid, a time for referral to the judge in a detention 
center is more than twice as long as in mainland France and finally 
police harassment enabled by almost systematic identity checks 
throughout the island. But this is also the case in other areas, such as 
labor law: legal working time was set at 39 hours/week until the general 
strike of 2016, a minimum wage lower than the metropolitan minimum wage, 
an RSA at discount. Labor law has only been applied since 2018 but 
collective agreements are still very rare. The forced re-entry of this 
island into the capitalist system modeled on the French model is 
responsible for the social misery that reigns there.
Mahorese citizens are considered, in law and in fact, as second-class 
citizens. It is this colonial legislation that allowed Operation 
Wuambushu: the arbitrary destruction of "informal housing", and 
therefore the placing of hundreds of people on the street.
The symptom of French imperialism in agony
The power of the French state is held by its imperialism, it fights not 
to see itself downgraded. Driven out of the Sahel in particular by Mali, 
Burkina Faso and Niger, which announce that they want to leave the CFA 
franc and French control, the colonial French state seeks to maintain 
its strategic presence in the Indian Ocean. The period of decolonization 
having officially made the categories of sub-citizens or sub-French 
disappear, he redoubled his efforts to control the colonized peoples on 
his soil, and used the law on immigration and access to nationality to 
create and maintain a stigmatized and exploited population.

Stand up against colonialism

This policy of repression and legal exception applied to one French 
department opens a breach for the 100 others. Today, the project to 
revise the Constitution to eliminate land rights in Mayotte represents 
an enormous danger. The far right is already outbidding and demanding 
the abolition of land rights throughout French territory. After the 
Darmanin-Le Pen law on immigration, the convergence of Macronie and the 
RN is accelerating.

Due to the historical damage suffered by the four islands of the 
Comoros, then the multiple coups d'état orchestrated by the French state 
since the country's independence, which have contributed to its 
political and economic instability, there is no "French" solution to the 
crisis in Mayotte. Freedom of movement must regain its rights. The 
Comoros archipelago should regain its geographical and economic balance 
by reintegrating Mayotte. The French State should accompany this 
retrocession with economic rebalancing aid, for reparations. It is in 
fact the French State which, through its iniquitous policy, separated 
the populations, then dug a gap between them which today must be filled.


To validate

[1]Nathalie Guibert and Jérôme Talpin 
https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2023/10/20/crise-de-l-eau-a-mayotte-les-lourdes-responsabilites-de-l- 
etat_6195482_823448.html The world, October 20, 2023

[2]https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Mayotte-Une-poudriere-sociale 
Alternative Libertaire, January 4, 2011

[3]https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?V-sage-femme-a-Mayotte-Wuambushu-continue-ici-de-facon-tres-concrete 
Alternative Libertaire, September 11, 2023

[4]https://www.lacimade.org/quelques-elements-danalyse-visa-balladur/ La 
cimade, October 17, 2017

[5]Romain Geoffroy, Pierre Breteau and Manon Romain 
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2023/05/22/mayotte-le-departement-des-exceptions-legales_6171286_4355771.html

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Mayotte-feu-au-colonialisme-francais
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