The Senate faces the immense challenge of "rebuilding" Mayotte

More than five months after the devastating passage of Cyclone Chido, the government's response is entering a new phase: the long-term reconstruction of France's 101st department, the poorest of them all.

Because "if the cyclone devastated Mayotte, it mainly exacerbated existing calamities," said Overseas Minister Manuel Valls, defending the project before senators.

Following the "vital emergency" responses carried out across the country in the weeks following the disaster, and then the reconstruction effort accelerated by the adoption of a first dedicated bill in mid-February, this third stage tackles a much larger project and must force the State to face up to its responsibilities, particularly financial ones.

The "program law" submitted to senators thus orchestrates a promise by Emmanuel Macron, that of deploying, by 2031, 3,2 billion euros of public investments targeted towards water, education, health, infrastructure and security.

Investment "schedule"

The executive's objectives are listed in a lengthy report annexed to the bill, which senators will be able to amend and clarify during the first hours of debate. The debate will continue until a formal vote scheduled for Tuesday, May 27, and the National Assembly is expected to take it up in June.

This text "is absolutely essential" to "give perspectives and confidence to the territory, where distrust of the State is strong," summarizes one of the co-rapporteurs of the text, Horizons Senator Olivier Bitz, for AFP.

Constructed with local elected officials, this law will be particularly scrutinized in the archipelago, where the demands of elected officials are becoming more pressing every week on housing, education and immigration.

"We sense a real commitment from the state to help us emerge from this crisis. But the urgent thing for us is to have a timetable, a precise schedule for investments," Mayotte Senator Salama Ramia (Macronist RDPI group) told AFP.

This crucial issue has been identified in the Senate, which should strengthen the programmatic aspect of the text, in particular by requiring the government to quantify, year after year, the investments it plans.

Still with the aim of "reassuring local people", the senators also proposed in committee to establish a "monitoring committee" to ensure that the promises do not remain a dead letter.

But this bill, one of the very few parliamentary initiatives emanating from the government in this turbulent political year, goes far beyond the framework of the program: numerous measures aim to reform the economic, social, institutional and security context of the island.

Territorialized visas

The most sensitive aspect relates to immigration, with tougher conditions for access to residence, increased penalties for fraudulent recognition of paternity and the possibility of withdrawing residence permits from the parents of children considered to be a threat to public order.

Nothing, however, has been said about the locally requested abolition of territorialized visas that prevent holders of Mayotte residence permits from entering France. According to its advocates, this measure would "relieve" congestion in hospitals and schools in the face of the massive influx of illegal immigrants, particularly from neighboring Comoros.

But both the government and the Senate majority are arguing for its retention, fearing it will reinforce the hypothesis of a migratory "pull factor".

"We denounce this way of treating the migration problem as a distraction instead of addressing it at its source," worries Socialist Corinne Narassiguin, who castigates the government's "migration obsession." The Green group, for its part, denounced a text that "stigmatizes" and "criminalizes" "instead of rebuilding."

Another likely irritant is an article to facilitate expropriations in order to speed up reconstruction.

The project also includes economic and social measures with the creation of a global free zone with 100% tax breaks, and the prospect, by 2031, of a "social convergence" between mainland France and the archipelago where social minima, such as the RSA, are currently 50% lower.