When Gérald Darmanin decrees “the end of soil law” in Mayotte, the right approves and the left screams

Gérald Darmanin a par ailleurs déclenché l'acte II de l’opération policière Wuambushu sur l'île. MAXPPP – LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL

Traveling on Sunday February 11 to the archipelago, faced with a serious migration crisis and serious problems of insecurity, the Minister of the Interior announced a constitutional revision intended only for the country. island. 

The Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories, Gérald Darmanin, announced yesterday "the end of land rights" in Mayotte, the archipelago of ;rsquo;Indian Ocean in the grip of strong social protest against insecurity and irregular immigration. Roadblocks by angry residents have paralyzed the activity of this French department since January 22.

"We have come to provide answers to this important crisis, and in particular firstly answers on the migration question", declared Gérald Darmanin on his arrival in Mayotte, where the new Minister Delegate for Overseas, Marie Guévenoux.

"The President of the Republic has instructed me to tell the Mahorais that we are going to take a radical decision, which is the registration of the end of land rights in Mayotte& ;quot;, he said, specifying that a constitutional revision would be initiated in this sense.

A decision intended only for the archipelago

"We will thus literally cut off the attractiveness that there may be in the Mahorais archipelago", continued the minister. "It will therefore no longer be possible to come to Mayotte irregularly or regularly, to give birth to a child here and hope to become French in this way", he stressed, adding that this measure would be limited to the Mahorais archipelago, faced with strong immigration from the African Great Lakes, in particular. "It is not a question of doing it for other territories of the Republic", clarified Gérald Darmanin.

Devant les citoyens et les élus Mahorais, nous avons pris, avec @mguevenoux, l’engagement de mettre en œuvre les mesures nécessaires au rétablissement de la paix publique à Mayotte : fin du droit du sol, durcissement du regroupement familial, limitation drastique des titres de… pic.twitter.com/rzuYG2UhBN

— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) February 11, 2024

Soil law allows a child born on French territory to two foreign parents to automatically acquire French nationality when they turn 18. A provision of the immigration law toughening land law in Mayotte, Guyana and Saint-Martin was censored on January 24 by the Constitutional Council on the grounds that it constituted a "legislative override" .

End of territorialized visas

The Overseas Minister also announced that the future Mayotte bill would put an end to territorialized visas, which the Mahorais consider unfair. A "territorialized" residence permit awarded to Mayotte does not allow movement in the rest of French territory or in Europe, which leads to a concentration of foreigners in the archipelago .

In a video posted on X before his departure for Mayotte, Gérald Darmanin assures that the migrants grouped in a makeshift camp around the Cavani stadium, in Mamoudzou, will be evacuated. People who have refugee status will be "repatriated to France", those who are in an irregular situation will be returned to their country of origin, he said.

"Finally!" for Eric Ciotti

"Finally!", exclaimed the president of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti, who emphasized that a "proposal for a constitutional law is on the table for a year". Much awaited by the right, in particular by the parliamentarians of the archipelago like Mansour Kamardine who wants “Mayotte to remain Mayotte, that is to say an inhabited French territory by the French.

The president of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau regretted a waste of time and said: "If the Senate had been listened to…". The extreme right even wants to go even further, like Eric Zemmour, president of Reconquête, who is simply asking to "remove land rights throughout the national territory".

Enough to annoy the left on the other hand. Boris Vallaud (PS), announced that his group would oppose the constitutional revision because "the right to land is not negotiable". Manin Aubry, head of the Insoumis aux Européennes list, regrets that "Macronie attacks the very concept of nationality". In the same tone, the ecologist Marie Toussaint speaks of a ’demolition of our values ​​by a President of the Republic who is ahead of the extreme right".

"Iron Curtain"

The Minister of the Interior, who came accompanied by reinforcements of 15 men from the GIGN, also initiated Act II of the Wuambushu police operation , launched in April 2023, against crime in the archipelago, irregular immigration and illegal habitats.

He announced the upcoming establishment of "an iron curtain in the water to prevent the passage of kwassa kwassa", canoes of Comorian fishing used by smugglers.