The island of Mayotte, a French possession in the Indian Ocean, has for many months been in the grip of a violent protest involving a number of factors: soaring immigration, an explosion in violence and insecurity, and a feeling of abandonment by the authorities. In an attempt to quell the discontent, France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has announced an unprecedented reform: the abolition of the island’s ‘droit du sol’ (jus soli, or birthright citizenship) through constitutional reform. The Right is calling for the system to be extended to the whole of France.
The island of Mayotte has been blocked for over three weeks by major blockades and demonstrations, in protest against the lack of security on the island from the ravages of uncontrolled immigration. For many years, the island has been a favourite target for migrants. Many women come from the neighbouring archipelago of the Comoros to give birth here, so that their children can benefit from French nationality by virtue of the droit du sol in force throughout France. As a result, the maternity hospital in Mamoudzou, the island’s main town, is the largest in France in terms of the number of births per year—in addition to hundreds of clandestine births all over the island. Mayotte’s birthright citizenship rules were reformed in 2018. Since then, for a child to be born French, one of its parents must have been living in Mayotte for at least three months without interruption. This provision has somewhat slowed down the immigration of pregnant women but remains insufficient to control the flow.
The minister of the interior visited Mayotte on Sunday, February 11th, accompanied by the new deputy minister for overseas territories, in an attempt to renew dialogue with a hostile local population: it was in Mayotte that Marine Le Pen achieved her highest score in the first round of the 2022 presidential election, with 42.68% of the vote. On Friday, February 9th, just before Darmanin arrived in Mayotte, Le Pen denounced the “totally abandoned population of Mayotte” in the face of a situation of “virtual civil war.”
In response, Darmanin announced that he wanted to go further than the 2018 reform and definitively abolish birthright citizenship in Mayotte. This would require constitutional reform, which should be on the agenda as early as 2024 at Emmanuel Macron’s initiative. To be ratified, the reform needs the support of three-fifths of parliamentarians—deputies and senators combined—which seems broadly accessible on such a subject, since the right-wing parties, Les Républicains and Rassemblement National, have been in favour of this reform for several years.
The revision of the constitution is to be accompanied by an emergency bill for Mayotte, which will be put to the vote before the summer. In addition to a plan to modernise the island’s infrastructure, the law would put an end to ‘territorialised visas,’ a system that currently prevents foreigners with a residence permit valid for Mayotte from travelling to mainland France. At present, holders of these visas do so mainly for family reasons, for example to join a child born French on the island. Darmanin believes that the abolition of birthright citizenship will render territorialised visas obsolete. The application to Mayotte of the new immigration law, passed in January, should also limit the effects of family reunification there. The minister of the interior also announced that refugees in Mayotte will be repatriated to prevent the island from becoming overcrowded, which worries some people on the Right: the problem of massive immigration in Mayotte could thus just be exported to mainland France.
The Rassemblement National is calling for a state of emergency to be introduced on Mayotte, which Jordan Bardella visited a few months ago, and recalls the tabling of a bill in favour of the island back in 2018, which went unheeded. It accuses the government of having taken too long to act, and with insufficient energy.
At the same time, Éric Zemmour welcomed Gérald Darmanin’s decision: “Darmanin recognises that the droit du sol is a huge suction pump for immigration invasion.” Zemmour believes that the measure should now be extended to the whole of France. “Darmanin is absolutely right that it should be abolished, but it shouldn’t stop at Mayotte. It must be abolished throughout France. Droit du sol has become a major weapon in the African invasion of France,” Zemmour explained on the TV channel France 2.
Meanwhile, on the island of Mayotte, preparations are under way for Operation Wuambushu 2—a continuation of the security operations carried out in spring 2023 to expel illegal immigrants, destroy shanty towns, and combat crime in the archipelago. The minister of the interior claims to have the support of local groups to restore order.
