The Minister of the Interior and Overseas, Gérald Darmanin, visiting Mayotte, announced that he was going to present proposals to open “places of re-education and recovery” for minor offenders, supervised by the military.

“The President of the Republic in his campaign has proposed something that has not been discussed much: places guarded by the military, which are places of reeducation, recovery for some of the children, very young adolescents, who do not have parents, or very few. . We saw it a little in Réunion, we see it a lot here in Mayotte”, the minister told the press at the end of the visit to the hospital on this island in the Indian Ocean.

He announced that he would make proposals in this sense to the President of the Republic “starting next week.”

“Offer them a place of sanction and education”

The Minister indicated that the policemen and gendarmes, decorated hours before, had mentioned “apart from children under 11, 10, nine years old who carried machetes, axes, who attacked policemen and commissioners.”

“Today the magistrates, and this is quite normal, release them, since we do not put children in prison, but nevertheless we must offer them a place of punishment and education,” explained the minister.

For its part, the Keeper of the Seals announced this Thursday the opening by 2024 of a closed educational center (CEF) in Mayotte, but these places are intended for young people aged 13 and older.

In addition, facing the Mahorais for whom insecurity is a great daily fear, the minister also asked the director general of the National Police “to study the possibility of using intermediate weapons, the ones we used here when there were disturbances, when the Raid came” . , during fights between minors. She recalled that “obviously when minors, even extremely violent ones, are not apprehended, (there is) no possibility of firing live ammunition as you would when attacked by adults.”