More Trouble in France: Mayotte Riots
Mayotte — a tiny, overpopulated island (376 square kilometers, 186,452 inhabitants) in the Indian Ocean — is rioting.
The youth are fighting a street war against the gendarmes. Most employees are striking, many shops have been looted. Some Caucasian residents have been molested. Violence started only one month ago, on September 21, but conditions have been steadily deteriorating since April 1, when the island — hitherto a French overseas dependency — became the 101st French county (département).
A classic case of a small nation resisting incorporation into a larger one? Actually, just the opposite: county status was approved by 95.2% of Mayotte inhabitants (Mahorais) in a 2009 referendum. And they had been begging for it for over thirty-five years.
Formerly part of the French Comoros archipelago, Mayotte seceded upon Comoros’ ascension to independence in 1974 in order to stay French. Ever since then, Mayotte has demanded full-fledged citizenship. The French were lukewarm, to say the least — the Mahorais may love France, but they can hardly be described as a lost Gallic tribe. Most don’t speak French, but Shimaore (a dialect of Swahili) and Shibushi (a dialect of Malagasy). They are devout Muslims, and practice polygamy.
The driving force beyond Mayotte’s insistance on being given county status was welfare.
French overseas counties enjoy exactly the same rights and the same welfare benefits as mainland counties, from free medicine to guaranteed minimum wages to child-rearing allowances.
As a French postcolonial dependency, Mayotte was already much richer than its neighbors. It enjoyed a per capita GDP of $4500 in 2010 according to the CIA World Factbook, greater than Mozambique’s or the Comoros’ $1000 and Madagascar’s $900. As a French county, however, Mayotte is poised to get much closer to France’s comparatively staggering $40,000.
Until 2007, successive governments in Paris, both right and left, maneuvered to postpone départementalisation for as long as possible. Then, Nicolas Sarkozy came. He decided that France was already too involved with Mayotte, and that county status would not make any real difference. The 2009 referendum and subsequent 2010 vote at the French parliament took place at his request. The French nation as a whole was not consulted, which is against the literal reading of article 53 of their constitution and relevant precedents (referendums had been organized in France proper regarding the independence of Algeria in 1962 and a reformed statute for New Caledonia in 1988).
Sarkozy was wrong. County status did make a difference in Mayotte: it sharpened the islanders’ appetite. The Mahorais want their standards of living to improve quickly. France – deep in debt — has offered to raise them step by step. The islanders are demanding something more drastic. The least they have in mind is parity with the other overseas départements (the DOM’s, in French bureaucratic parlance): a per capita GDP half of mainland France, around $20,000.
Meet the real world: France is the last oceanic empire. Gone are the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch overseas empires. Direct British overseas dependencies are scarce. The U.S. relinquished — for no clear reason — the legally stolen Panama Canal Zone. But the French are still present in the Western hemisphere (Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélémy, Saint-Martin, Guyane), in the Indian Ocean (Réunion, Mayotte, the Kerguelen Islands), and in the Pacific Ocean (New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, French Polynesia, Clipperton). All in all: 120,000 square kilometers, or approximatively one fifth of France proper. And most of these places are départements.
When you hear that the French population is currently 65 million, it sums as about 62 million in France and three million overseas. From another angle, it can be argued as well that the real demographic share of Overseas France in Global France is much higher, since many French citizens born overseas — up to 2 million, according to conservative estimates — now live in mainland France. And while most of them are much closer to mainstream French society than the Mahorais, the Overseas French, either at home or in France proper, retain a distinct identity in many respects. Many of them tend to coalesce with the Neo-French, the largely Muslim Arab or African community that immigrated en masse over the last forty years.
“Under French law, any child born on French soil is granted citizenship. And all his or her relatives may be allowed, under family reunion dispensations, to join him and live with him on French soil as well.”
I thought we were the only suckers who did this. Seems to be working out as badly for the French as it is for us. There are lots of women coming from Mexico and other poor countries to have their kids here in the United States just so the children can become American citizens. Naturally, the rest of the family follows these kids into the country illegally, causing huge problems for local public school systems and government aid programs. Allowing children that are born here to become citizens was a law that was created right after the slaves were freed after the Civil War, and I think we’ve come a long way since then. I’m not really sure we need to have this law anymore and it is very, very, unfair to the immigrants who do come here legally and go through the immigration process. This law has been given little publicity lately and it is interesting to see that it is as destructive to other countries as it is to ours.
Dear Dr. Bones,
Make a memorandumb of this one, please, sir.
Interesting to find a Whight Guardist attemptin’ to recycle ‘Caucasian’ as a way of referrin’ to the crux an’ quiddity of Western Sieve.
“¡Ah, Paris — the Tiflis, the Erevan, the Bakou, even, of the West!”
Happy days.
An 11th-14th Century-peaked moronic religious peoples demanding evermore funds from the very Westerners they loathe, hate and don’t assimilate nor intend to whatsoever. Sounds familiar.
Sadly Mr. Gurfunkiel, the French bourgeoisie government will instill more welfare/handouts to appease the Mayotte ‘residents’ in the name of ‘racial’/'social’/'economic’-type ‘justice’ in the pursuit of ‘equanimity’.
The same do-nothing but comply with the scourge.. err ‘downtrodden’ is a similar response the ’05 France riots effecting Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Cambrai, Nice, Nord etc., (dozens of regions) incorporated.
Sadly the ’07 ‘Val-d’Oise riot was more of the same response. 130+ policemen injured and many public buildings burned.
Like the ’05 riots, the French authorities didn’t give detailed accounts of the ’07 riots. Quite a slap in the face of the injured policemen, French citizens though a big ‘thumbs up’ to this thuggery.
Maybe the US ought to try this. Free health care and all those other beneits. And better cheese. What could go wrong?
“insistence,” not “insistance”
“the French authorities didn’t give detailed accounts” … distasteful stuff in France is always “hidden” so as not to tarnish its image. Try finding statistics (details) of suicides, child abductions, mental illness, gun crimes by immigrants, etc etc.
Popping the Utopian bubble is a no no … oligarchs reign though.
I always try to remind myself of this by using the WYSNIWIG – What You See Is NOT What You Get. Palacial gold-covered buildings in Paris says it all – ah the longing for the old daze!
Right you are, Sir.
Gee, the inherent dynamic of government freebies married to the innate aggressiveness of Islam has produced riots! Whoda thunk it?
Le president de la France,
Up to his old song ‘n dance:
He jiggles his ass
In a fanfare of gas,
Voila toot! and shits in his pants.
So basically it’s unrest about insufficient social welfare benefits being paid out to the French Muslim version of Puerto Rico.
I don’t see what could possibly go wrong with this arrangement.
I must profess my ignorance. I didn’t know France had its own Puerto Rico.
And not just one PR, but many; though I wonder that when the entire system collapses, what will all of those “Little France’s” do?
Hey, don’t rain on my joy of seeing this poetic blowback on French political correctness.
Thanks for that interesting story. It once again illustrates the con man/rube relationship between the West and the Third World, a relationship liberals deny because they think everyone is ‘nice.’
Until such time as we can again afford to care for immigrants that arrive in the US, all immigration should cease, excepting genocide victims such as those who are Christian living among muslims. Any muslims seeking sharia law in this country or are affiliated with the muslim brotherhood need to be deported, as they are the enemy within.The battle lines are being drawn,and you’d best pick
the side your on.
France is currently #64 (that’s a long way from the top)in the world, as an “economically free” country, according to the Heritage Foundation’s “economic” freedom index. Essentially; France has regulated itself and spent itself into an enormous hole. Yet, French people are clueless (in general) about the position of their country … when they realize the severity of the problem, it will be a major shock … unless a miracle occurs.
Somebody please tell me how in the hell a country that is in such tough shape can have ANY credibility in the world community when it comes to “solving” any European “crisis”?
Hmmm. Now you saying the US doesn’t have “territories” outside the 50-states? How about Puerto Rico, American Virgin Islands, and American Samoa? I’m quite sure there are more in the Pacific, even if they are uninhabited. Sooo, France isn’t alone in Transoceanic governance.
Didn’t the Vietnam war originally start as an attempt by France to hold on to one of their territories, ‘temporarily’ abandoned after the Japanese invasion, being pushed back by the locals?
Thanks for this informative account. The WSJ has 2 articles on the state of French fiscal health and the likelihood of solving its debt problems. The government appears to be elitist. In addition, their debt is threatened with downgrading. Both France and Germany are the major players in bailing out the various bankrupt countries in the EU, but France appears to be in pretty bad shape itself.
This article is very informative to those in the U.S. who assumed France had done what England did after WWII, because France was in worse shape than England. England worked to remove its overseas holdings, a common-sense response to being bankrupt after fending off the Nazis. The future of France looks worse than ever. Hayek was right – the end of the road to Utopia is Serfdom.