French President Emmanuel Macron has engaged in an angry exchange with cyclone-affected residents of the Mayotte islands, telling an outraged, jeering crowd: “If this wasn’t France, you’d be 10,000 times more in the shit.”
Cyclone Chido devastated Mayotte, located between Madagascar and Mozambique, on December 14, destroying vital infrastructure and leveling many of the tin-roofed shanties that make up its large slums. Almost a week after the worst storm in 90 years, France’s poorest territory continues to suffer from water shortages.
Throughout Thursday, the French president faced angry Mahores who demanded to know why help had not yet reached them. At one point he told a crowd: “You are happy to be in France. If this weren’t France, you’d be 10,000 times more in shit. There is no other place in the Indian Ocean where people are helped so much, that is a fact.”
The statements have been harshly criticized by the French opposition.
On Thursday night, Macron explained that he was extending his visit to a second day “as a sign of respect, of consideration.” “I decided to sleep here because it seemed to me that, given what the population is experiencing, [irse el mismo día podría haber] installed the idea that we come, we look, we leave,” he said.
The booing continued on Friday. “Seven days and you are not able to give water to the population,” a man shouted at Macron as he toured the small community of Tsingoni, on the west coast of Mayotte’s main island, Grande-Terre.
“I understand your impatience. You can count on me,” Macron responded, saying that water will be distributed to the town halls.
The official death toll, 31, has been lower than expected, after authorities said they feared there were thousands dead. Immediate burials, in line with Islamic tradition, and the large number of undocumented migrants from nearby Comoros who avoid authorities for fear of being deported, may mean that the true number of fatalities may never be known.
The cyclone also caused 73 deaths in northern Mozambique and 13 in Malawi, according to the authorities of these southeastern African countries.
Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants, but authorities have said there could be between 100,000 and 200,000 more, most of them from the Comoros and living in the islands’ slums. Mayotte became part of France in 1841 and voted to remain French in 1974, when the Comoros Islands opted for independence.
Earlier in the week, right-wing and openly anti-immigration Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau declared that Mayotte could not be rebuilt without addressing immigration.
In Kaweni, a slum on the outskirts of the island’s capital, Mamoudzou, Ali Djimoi says eight people who have lived near him have died from the cyclone, two of them quickly buried near a mosque. He believes Mayotte has been “completely abandoned” by the French state. “The water that comes out of the pipes, even if it works, cannot be drunk, it comes out dirty.”
With information from agencies.
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