Faced with illegal immigration, a deputy from Mayotte calls to “lock” the border of the island – RT in French

The deputy of Mayotte Estelle Youssouffa pleaded for maximum firmness on the island in terms of immigration, speaking out for a special statute of the law of the soil for this department confronted with a significant illegal immigration.

In an interview published on January 1 on France Info, the deputy Freedoms, independents, overseas and territories (Liot) of Mayotte Estelle Youssouffa calls again for a firmer policy in the fight against immigration on the island while that the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin was visiting there for two days.

On this occasion, the tenant of Place Beauvau underlined, with the same media, the importance of the means mobilized by the State, with in particular the presence of “1,300 police officers and gendarmes on an island which has 300,000 inhabitants”. According to the minister, “for a population seven times smaller than the Lyon region, there are twice as many police and gendarmes”.

But for Estelle Youssouffa, these announcements are to be put into perspective “because the real population in Mayotte, given the importance of immigration, is much larger”. According to the elected, “all these police forces are barely up to the needs and the usual ratio at the national level”. She thus evokes a figure “at least” of half a million inhabitants in this territory.

We must lock our border which is left wide open for the moment

“Half the population is currently foreign to Mayotte. Mayotte can no longer. It’s just that everything is saturated. At the level of public services, the schools are in rotation, that is to say that there is a class in the morning, a class in the afternoon, because there are no longer enough buildings”, deplores she, describing in passing a security situation that has deteriorated sharply over the past decade. “The slightest spark can rock the island because the population is overwhelmed,” she warns.

The deputy claims as such a right of the soil specific to the island, alerting against “a demography which is completely uncontrollable”. “80% of parturients are Comorian in Mayotte. For these foreigners, the object is to obtain nationality. Once they have a child who, potentially, at 18, can claim nationality, these mothers are not deportable and their children, once they are naturalized, allow them access to family reunification”, she points.

She is also calling for permanent navy patrols between the island and the Comoros against whom she is asking for sanctions for “the migratory pressure they exert in Mayotte”. “We must lock our border which is left wide open for the moment,” she argues.

Raid police officers kept on the spot

Migration flows to the island are not abating despite a previous three-day visit in August by the Minister of the Interior. Migrants come from the Comoros archipelago but also from the African Great Lakes, as illustrated by the landing of around sixty people on December 28. Gérald Darmanin promised on this subject a tour of the African States concerned to facilitate the return of their nationals who have been refused asylum.

He also formalized the maintenance for several months in the archipelago of the group of 12 Raid police officers, who arrived in November when the territory was experiencing a new outbreak of violence between rival gangs.