She was criticized for not having a stopover in Mayotte when Élisabeth Borne went to Reunion Island last May. Seven months after the launch of “Operation Wuambushu” to try to regain control of the insecurity which paralyzes the 101st French department, the Prime Minister is due to land Friday morning in Mayotte. His second overseas trip since his appointment to Matignon. This is the first time in eight years, and the visit of Manuel Valls in 2015, that a head of government has visited Mamoudzou.
If insecurity will occupy a good part of the 14-hour program that Élisabeth Borne will spend there, it is to the very serious water crisis that her first words will be devoted during her lightning trip. She will visit a desalination plant and a drinking water distribution point to the population while severe current water restrictions have been paralyzing Mayotte for several months.
“Faced with an unprecedented drought, which adds problems to those already in the past, I have come to bring a message of solidarity to the inhabitants of Mayotte,” explains Élisabeth Borne to Le Figaro, before taking off Thursday evening for the Indian Ocean.
The head of government will be accompanied by the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, with whom she will go to the Mamoudzou hospital center. The establishment, like other local public services, is overwhelmed by the combination of a glaring lack of staff and considerable migratory pressure.
The Minister of the Interior, who had to give up a trip to Mayotte at the beginning of November to follow the evolution of storm Ciaran in France, will not be present. Officially, Gérald Darmanin must stay in Paris to prepare the thorny examination of his immigration bill on Monday in the National Assembly. He will be represented by his Minister Delegate for Overseas Affairs, Philippe Vigier.
“With my entire government, we have been very mobilized for several months to provide a solution to the water crisis,” assures Élisabeth Borne, who insists on the interministerial response to the crises shaking the Mahorais archipelago, without dwelling unduly. on activism in the department of its rival Beauvau.
More than 8,000 kilometers from Paris, Élisabeth Borne will be greeted with very high expectations. His visit “is an important signal of national solidarity while our island is in unprecedented distress with an acute multi-crisis,” observes MP Estelle Youssouffa (Liot). Which summarizes the encysted files: “Mayotte no longer has drinking water on tap after months of drought and years of underfunding, schools are closing because of the water crisis; the violence has taken on a staggering scale everywhere with raids on burned villages and attacks on vehicles, daily riots for 3 weeks; shops and businesses have not been working normally for months; our only hospital has been in “white plan” level 2 since June, caregivers, investors and civil servants are fleeing…”
Élisabeth Borne, who will go to a shantytown “to meet the residents”, places emphasis on Operation Wuambushu. Intended to destroy informal housing and curb illegal immigration, the initiative led by the Minister of the Interior was criticized in the spring by numerous left-wing organizations, who deemed it “brutal” and “anti-poor “.
“This territory faces considerable challenges. Migration and security, of course. Operation Wuambushu made it possible to arrest nearly 90% of gang leaders and identified delinquents,” recalls the Prime Minister. Who, however, admits “a resurgence of violence”. “We sent additional mobile forces to Mayotte. This will be one of the themes of my visit”, warns Élisabeth Borne who will discover the “school transport security system” and will meet “the police and gendarmerie personnel engaged against illegal immigration”.
In this department which voted for Marine Le Pen in the second round of the last presidential election (59.1% of the vote), Élisabeth Borne will be expected around the corner. “Mayotte is on fire, the Mahorais are under the yoke of terror, but the government favors the social treatment of uncontrolled immigration!” warned MP LR Mansour Kamardine to the Journal de Mayotte. “However, treating the consequences without treating the causes only amplifies the problem,” he lamented before the Prime Minister announced during a speech to the Departmental Council an additional envelope of 100 million euros to deal with to the explosion of social spending.
