After Cyclone Chido hit the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte, Emmanuel Macron told locals that they would be “10,000 times more in the shit” if they weren’t French-ruled. The mass casualties show how little France has actually done to protect the islanders.
The French archipelago of Mayotte, located between mainland Africa’s east coast and northern Madagascar, was hit last week by the strongest cyclone in nearly a century. Winds howling above 220 kilometers per hour (136 miles per hour) peeled the roofs and walls from homes that collapsed around the people inside. Many residents still remain cut off from the world, without access to water, food, or electricity. Public health experts are now concerned that a lack of access to clean water could lead to disease, such as cholera.
The devastation is total in Mayotte, which is by far France’s poorest territory. Mayotte has suffered for years from extreme poverty and deep structural vulnerability — even before the cyclone, 77 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, while 29 percent of households had no access to running water.
The population is regularly subject to severe restrictions on drinking water. In late 2023 and early 2024, tap water was cut off two days out of three to cope with an unprecedented drought.
The cyclone left no chance for the poorest and most marginalized communities. Many of the residents live in shantytowns — indeed, one in three live in a precarious house made of sheet metal. These slums were completely razed by the cyclone, turning into a “mass grave,” according to the local MP Estelle Youssouffa. Some of the wealthiest inhabitants survived by sheltering in solid concrete houses, but the vast majority was hit hard. “We don’t even recognize our streets and our neighborhoods anymore,” said one resident.
Thirty-one people have been counted dead, and more than two thousand people were injured — more than two hundred critically — French authorities said. But no one really knows how many people are missing or are still trapped under the rubble. Residents are distressed at not knowing if their relatives were dead or missing, partly because Muslim practice requires that the dead must be laid to rest within twenty-four hours.
An extremely heavy human toll is feared. According to Mayotte’s prefect, François-Xavier Bieuville, “hundreds, even thousands of people” may have died. “We’re dealing with open-air mass graves. There are no rescuers; no one has come to recover the buried bodies,” said the local MP Youssoufa. A local journalist reported an estimate of 60,000 deaths circulating among emergency services. This figure has not been confirmed by the authorities. However, President Emannuel Macron acknowledged that many who died haven’t been reported.
The French state, often accused of negligence, is widely criticized for its management of the archipelago. A report of the general inspectorate of six ministries published in 2023 already denounced “a generalized bankruptcy of public administrations” in Mayotte. The territory remains underequipped in health infrastructure, education, and access to drinking water. Six out of ten homes do not have toilets or showers, favoring epidemics such as cholera.
Despite numerous political promises of investment to improve the situation, Mayotte’s infrastructure is ill-equipped for the island’s vulnerable climate and socioeconomic conditions. This is further exacerbating the tragic consequences of the current situation.
A state of exceptional natural calamity has been activated for the first time. It’s still extremely difficult to get here. Mayotte is remote, cut off completely from the rest of the region except for the French military planes that bring in emergency aid. The main airport on Mayotte’s smaller island of Petit-Terre is still closed; the control tower has been destroyed.
Migration
Mayotte is the only part of the Comoros archipelago that did not opt for independence in 1973, following French colonization in the nineteenth century. It voted to remain part of France in a 1974 referendum as the rest of the islands became the independent nation of Comoros. In 2011, Mayotte officially became the 101st French département.
Even though Mayotte is French, residents say they often feel abandoned by the French state, particularly on the issue of migration. For several years, the island faced substantial immigration pressures from the Comoros Islands.
Mayotte officially counts 320,000 residents and an estimated 100,000 additional migrants, who live in deplorable conditions in shantytowns. However, according to a 2022 report from the Regional Audit Office, “numerous indications” suggest that the population is “significantly underestimated” by official assessments.
This situation can be explained by Mayotte’s geographical location: it’s less than fifty miles from Anjouan, one of the three large islands that make up the Union of the Comoros. This proximity facilitates immigration from this country, one of the poorest in the world.
Most often arriving onboard large traditional fishing boats, called “kwassa-kwassa,” Comorian immigrants and nationals of many African countries make up nearly half of the département’s population.
French authorities often accuse the Comoros of encouraging departures to Mayotte to destabilize the island and France. The Comorian state has always claimed sovereignty over Mayotte since its independence.
The authorities fear a high number of deaths particularly among this population. “As the cyclone approached, no one went to the shantytowns to warn the population. Only loud telephone alarms written in French alerted the populations coming from the shantytowns. However, many inhabitants do not understand this language,” said geographer Fahad Idaroussi Tsimanda.
The cyclone devastated entire neighborhoods of migrants as many people ignored warnings, thinking the storm wouldn’t be so extreme. Other undocumented people feared that it was a trap set by the French authorities to expel them. Macron said that although there’s a large population of migrants illegally on the island — a problem he said he plans to later crack down on — he said there must be “no distinction when it comes to saving, feeding, drinking.”
French authorities have forcefully and controversially tackled the migration issue, expelling around 22,000 in 2023, compared to just over 25,000 the previous year. With this migration situation, Mayotte is also the youngest French département. Half of the population are minors. Due to the right of the soil (those who are born here become citizens), pregnant migrants come to Mayotte to give birth.
The words of the resigning interior minister also created controversy just a few days after the cyclone. “We will not be able to rebuild Mayotte without dealing with the migration issue with the greatest determination,” said Bruno Retailleau.
A New Crisis for Macron
Macron had already faced an unprecedented political crisis since the dissolution of the French parliament in summer — and is now in trouble again. During his twenty-four-hour visit to Mayotte, he was repeatedly taken to task by angry residents. They denounced their abandonment by the French state, and its slow response, and complained of not having access to water, almost a week after the cyclone hit.
“We are without water, without electricity, there is nowhere to go because everything is demolished. We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep,” one disaster victim told the French president.
Macron responded by saying that “if it wasn’t France, you would be 10,000 times more in the shit!” These comments have been denounced from all sides. To appease anger, the president also promised a “special law” to facilitate the reconstruction of this French archipelago, saying that “we were able to do it to organize the Olympic Games . . . to rebuild Notre-Dame de Paris, and so we will do it to rebuild Mayotte.”
His new centrist prime minister, François Bayrou, is also the focus of controversy over Mayotte, just a few days after his appointment. Bayrou is accused of having gone to a town-hall meeting in Pau, where he’s also the mayor, in the middle of the humanitarian crisis in Mayotte. This trip forced him to follow a crisis meeting on Mayotte by videoconference. In addition, he made this round trip with a Falcon plane, provided by the state, for a cost of around €18,000.
Bayrou had become prime minister last week after the collapse of Michel Barnier’s minority government, and he himself has no clear path to a majority. He said he would not leave any challenge “unanswered” — but without advancing particular solutions for Mayotte, as he currently promises to finalize his government “in a few days”.
Mayotte is still in shock and distress. It will take time — a lot of time — to recover. Some fear that the French state will once again abandon the island when the media attention subsides. “Decision-makers generally consider that these policies do not pay off electorally and prefer to show their ability to manage a disaster than to do everything to avoid it,” said Sandrine Revet, an anthropologist of disasters. Mayotte will remain an easy prey for future disasters if nothing changes.