Gérald Darmanin and his Minister Delegate for Overseas, Jean-François Carenco, begin a three-day trip to Mayotte this Sunday with the priority of fighting illegal immigration on the island, the 101st French département stricken by poverty and unsafety.
The Minister of the Interior, who maintained a firm position on immigration throughout the summer, intends to return to Mayotte on the issue, the subject of a major debate in Parliament next fall before the presentation of a bill.
He hopes to be able to include in this text the obligation for “one of the two parents [d’être] regularly for more than a year (against three months currently, editor’s note) in the territory (of Mayotte) so that his son is recognized as French”, he declared in an interview with the Sunday newspaper.
This measure was already to be included in the aborted Mayotte-specific bill in early 2022 after its rejection by local elected officials.
New media against illegal immigration
According to INSEE, almost half of Mayotte’s population does not have French nationality, but a third of foreigners were born on the island.
To fight against “fraudulent recognition of paternity” practiced, he says, by regular men for the benefit of “the children of recently arrived immigrants”, Gérald Darmanin announces that “these fathers [devront] prove that they support the child for three years and not just two”.
During his visit, the Minister should learn in particular about the new air and sea means to combat illegal immigration and visit the Pamandzi administrative detention center.
High birth rate and significant emigration
Located in the Indian Ocean between East Africa and Madagascar, the island, populated by 350,000 to 400,000 people according to the authorities, saw its population quadruple between 1985 and 2017 according to INSEE, under the combined effect of a high birth rate (more than four children per woman) and the important emigration of inhabitants of the neighboring archipelago of the Comoros.
The Government highlights its figures for deportations to the border, more than 23,000 in 2021, an increase of 78% compared to 2020, a year marked by Covid, and the increase in interceptions of “kwassas-kwassas”, light motorized vehicle boats used by Comorian immigrants.
Mayotte, where the average age was 23 in 2017, struggles to integrate its young people into working life: last year, 25,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 29 had no job, no education, no training, according to INSEE, or 36% of this age group, a proportion three times higher than in the rest of France (13%).
Darmanin’s second trip abroad
The island, a regular scene of clashes between gangs or with the police, also experiences high crime rates, much higher than those of mainland France, with four times more reports of robberies and much more frequent physical attacks.
Insecurity fueled by deep poverty: 194,000 Mahorais, or 74% of the population, live with a standard of living below 50% of the national median, according to INSEE.
This is the second trip abroad by the Minister of the Interior, since he assumed the Overseas portfolio this summer, after a visit to Réunion at the beginning of July.
Source: BFM TV
