Senate unanimously adopts emergency bill for reconstruction of Mayotte

The Senate unanimously adopted on Tuesday, February 4, the emergency bill for the reconstruction of Mayotte, a text which removes certain barriers to public procurement or urban planning rules to facilitate the restoration of the devastated archipelago.

After the National Assembly at the end of January, the upper house also approved the text put forward by the Minister for Overseas Territories Manuel Valls, which must now be the subject of an agreement between the two chambers before coming into force as soon as possible, two months after the passage of cyclone Chido, which caused the death of 39 people.

A joint committee of seven deputies and seven senators, responsible for arriving at a common version, will meet in Parliament on Monday.

Consensus was reached at the Luxembourg Palace because of the urgent need to help the French department of the Indian Ocean, but several groups considered the measures to be very insufficient, particularly with regard to the means implemented by the State.

Mr. Valls had estimated the "cost of destruction" the day before at around 3,5 billion euros, at the start of the debates. On Tuesday, he welcomed "another step" taken, promising within "two months" a second legislative component, a more ambitious program law to "rebuild Mayotte."

The text, which is technical, mainly contains relaxations or exceptions to the rules of town planning, public procurement and some social measures, such as tax breaks or reductions in contributions.

It does not address the issue of restricting birthright citizenship on the archipelago, which will be the subject of a bill from the right to the National Assembly on Thursday.

On Tuesday, senators debated at length a measure aimed at facilitating the awarding of public contracts to small local businesses, a provision introduced by the upper house. A 30% share of the amount of public contracts could thus be reserved for them, on an optional basis. This, for the left, did not go far enough.

The government has also introduced a new measure for owners, who will be able to take out a zero-interest loan to renovate their homes, up to a limit of 50.000 euros. This measure is also considered insufficient by some benches.

The Mayotte senator Salama Ramia (RDPI group with a Macronist majority) thus pleaded for planning for the future program law, "to encompass fundamental issues and deal with them at the root". "Mayotte does not deserve an out-of-touch vision for rebuilding itself", she warned, fearing a "saturation situation".