Disaster in Mayotte and class struggle

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5 days after cyclone “Chido” hit the Island of Mayotte, we still don't even know the approximate number of victims of the disaster: the prefect has stated that the death toll is likely to be in the hundreds, if not “thousands”. The Kaweni slum, “the largest in Europe” (sic!) with around 20,000 inhabitants, was wiped out, as were the other “precarious housing” on the island (or rather islands) (1), where the planned shelters were able to accommodate only a few people. The material damage is immense, to the extent that the population's basic needs in terms of water, food and electricity are still not assured at the time of writing.

The media most often attribute the disaster to global warming – a way of absolving the authorities of any responsibility – while right-wing and far-right politicians blame illegal immigration which would be the reason for the proliferation of slums - implying that the victims had it coming...

Although the cyclone was probably the one that had the greatest impact on Mayotte since 1934 due to its trajectory, cyclones regularly hit the archipelago. According to Météo France, there are an average of 3 cyclones of equivalent intensity per year in the area, and there is currently no data to attribute cyclone Chido to climate change (2). In fact, according to one meteorologist, “everything was written in advance” (3). Several parliamentary reports have underlined, if proof were needed (as all Mayotte residents know), the risk run by slum inhabitants in the event of severe bad weather, as regularly occurs, often resulting in deadly mudslides. But writing parliamentary reports is one thing, and taking action to remedy problems or prepare for disasters (residents denounce the unpreparedness of state services) is another, which the bourgeois state is reluctant to do because it conflicts with capitalist interests: spending to improve the safety and living conditions of the poor masses and proletarians is heresy, when the keyword is the reduction of “unproductive” expenditure that weighs on the economy's average rate of profit...

Mayotte became a French department in 2011: it was formerly part of the French colony of the Comoros archipelago in the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. In the 1974 referendum on independence, the “yes” won everywhere in the archipelago except Mayotte. The French government decided to count the result island by island so that Mayotte would remain French: French imperialism then had a plan (which never came to fruition) to establish a military base on the island. Since then, an administrative border has separated the Comorian populations.

According to INSEE data (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies), Mayotte's fast-growing population is 320,000 (half of whom are under 18), nearly half of whom are foreigners (Comorians for the most part). Inequalities are 4 times higher than in Metropolitan France (particularly between civil servants and private-sector wage workers), 77% of the population is below the poverty threshold (compared with 15% in Metropolitan France), the unemployment rate is 37% (2023), 60% of homes lack basic amenities and a third of the population live in slums, which are not only inhabited by undocumented foreigners: given the lack of social housing (a plan published in 2015 foresaw that 8,000 social housing units were needed and that they would be built by 2025, only a few hundred have been completed) and the low level of wages, it is difficult for a proletarian family to find housing outside the slums. In addition, there are an estimated 100,000 undocumented proletarians, who have risked their lives (4) to come on makeshift boats from the Comoros, where living conditions are worse than in Mayotte; they are employed for misery wages in agriculture, fishing, construction, care jobs, etc.. But their presence is a source of tension, stirred up by extreme right-wing parties and the authorities, who denounce them as being responsible for insecurity, unemployment, etc. In the explosive situation of Mayotte, the struggles and riots that have taken place there on several occasions (5), and again at the beginning of this year, have often taken an interclassist character, with the demand to fight illegal immigration being put forward.

That's obviously what the French authorities wanted to retain about it, and they dispatched reinforcements of CRS (Compagnies républicaines de sécurité, the French anti-riot police). As part of the “Wuambushu” operation launched in 2023 by the French Ministry of the Interior “to combat unsanitary housing, crime and illegal immigration”, the inhabitants of several slums were evicted by the CRS. But with virtually no other housing being offered, they had no choice but to move to another slum, like Kaweni. The so-called fight against unsanitary housing was in fact a fight against the proletarians forced to live there. Improving housing conditions for proletarians would not only be expensive, but it would also be contrary to the practice of police harassment used to manage this low-cost labor force. This harassment played an important role in the disaster: many undocumented migrants saw the authorities' calls to gather in shelters as a trap for eviction and were left unprotected by the cyclone. After visiting the island, Retailleau, the former and likely future Minister of the Interior, not only did not question this practice, nor the living conditions inflicted on the proletarians, but declared (12/18) that the prerequisite for rebuilding Mayotte would be to “deal with the migration issue with the utmost determination”, which he likened to a “hybrid war”.

It is essentially proletarians who have been the victims of the disaster, victims of capitalism. The survivors have been warned: despite Macron's fine words and his smoke and mirrors national mourning day, they should not expect any improvement in their lot; through Retailleau's mouth, it's a veritable declaration of war that the bourgeois leaders are hurling at them.

(1) Mayotte is actually made up of two large islands, “Grande-Terre” and “Petite-Terre”, and several smaller islands and islets.

(4) The crossing is particularly dangerous, with dozens (perhaps hundreds) of people losing their lives every year.

(5) See « A Mayotte une crise sociale que seul le prolétariat peut réellement combattr», Le Prolétaire n°529.

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