Angry residents of cyclone-hit Mayotte jeer Macron, plead for water
MAYOTTE — Angry residents of a Mayotte neighbourhood damaged by Cyclone Chido heckled French President Emmanuel Macron when he toured it on Friday, complaining that potable water had not reached them nearly a week after the storm hit the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Officials in France’s poorest overseas territory have only been able to confirm 31 fatalities from Chido but some have said they fear thousands could have been killed.
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Some of the islands’ worst-affected neighbourhoods, hillside shantytowns comprised of flimsy huts that are home to undocumented migrants, have not yet been reached by rescue workers.
Macron visited the Tsingoni neighbourhood, where residents sweating in the heat decried a lack of provisions.
“Seven days and you’re not able to give water to the population!” one man shouted at Macron.
Macron, who had extended his visit to Mayotte to spend more time surveying the damage from the worst storm to hit the territory in 90 years, responded that authorities were scaling up distributions.
“I understand your impatience. You can count on me,” he said.
Some in Tsingoni greeted Macron more positively, thanking him for coming to see them. A 70-year-old woman offered a blessing while patting him on the head.
The previous evening, Macron replied testily to a jeering crowd that chanted for his resignation and accused his government of neglecting Mayotte, which is located some 8,000 km (5,000 miles) from metropolitan France.
“You are happy to be in France. If it wasn’t for France, you would be 10,000 times worse off,” he said, using an expletive.
He told reporters on Friday that France had invested heavily in Mayotte but that its institutions could not keep up with arrivals of undocumented migrants.
Concerns about immigration have helped make the territory a stronghold for the far-right National Rally, with 60% voting for Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election runoff.
Macron later led a crisis meeting of officials before departing in the afternoon for Djibouti, where he will share a Christmas meal with French troops stationed there.
‘WE NEED WATER’
Ali Djimoi, who lives in the Kaweni shantytown on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou, said Mayotte had been “completely abandoned” by the French state.
“The water running out the pipes – even if it’s working you can’t drink it, it comes out dirty,” he told Reuters.
Djimoi said eight people in his immediate neighbourhood were killed in the storm, two of whom were quickly buried close to a mosque.
