The Senate takes up the emergency bill for the reconstruction of Mayotte

Away from the budgetary issues of the National Assembly, where François Bayrou will draw his first 49.3, the upper house will advance the parliamentary path of another imperative text.

Consensual, although considered very insufficient by many elected officials, the emergency bill is supported by the new Minister of State Manuel Valls, who has just returned from a trip to Mayotte alongside the Minister of Education Elisabeth Borne.

The reconstruction "will not be done in twelve months", but "it will be done over several years for obvious reasons", Mr. Valls affirmed from Mayotte, estimating in an interview with AFP that the cost of the reconstruction would be "without doubt above a billion".

Adopted almost unanimously by the National Assembly, the text mainly contains relaxations of town planning and public procurement rules and some social measures, such as tax breaks or reductions in contributions.

It postpones the thorny issue of migration and the restriction of birthright citizenship on the archipelago - a bill from the right on the subject is due to be presented to the Assembly on Thursday - and will be supplemented by another, more ambitious text by March.

In committee, the Senate has remodeled certain provisions, for example by restoring an article facilitating the installation of temporary emergency constructions. The parliamentarians of the upper house have also reviewed the composition of the board of directors of the public establishment which will be in charge of coordinating the reconstruction, associating the local elected representatives.

"I was surprised to see that the elected representatives of Mayotte had not been involved in the text," said the rapporteur of the bill in the Senate, Micheline Jacques (LR), who also went to Mayotte, "to visit the locals". "It seemed inconceivable to me that we could decide on emergency measures 8.000 kilometers away without adapting to the realities of the territory," she added.

Another article is likely to fuel debate: it gives the government the power to legislate by decree to carry out expropriations, with the aim of speeding up reconstruction. The mechanism was removed in the Assembly.

"We are hoping for clarification from the minister in session", to potentially "precisely include in the law" the details of the measure, indicated MoDem senator Isabelle Florennes.

After the Senate's examination, which should end during the night from Monday to Tuesday, deputies and senators will be called upon to find a common text during a joint committee, probably as early as Monday, February 10, to allow for entry into force as quickly as possible.