poverty, migratory tensions… why does the reconstruction of Mayotte look complicated?
On call at the hospital, Michela sees Cyclone Chido breaking like a gigantic wave. This Saturday, December 14, gusts of more than 200 km/h hit the Mayotte archipelago, for the first time in a hundred years. “I came home and saw the bay window of my apartment, broken into a thousand pieces,” says the nurse. The rain soaked all my belongings. Now I pray to heaven that my ceiling doesn’t collapse! »
However, Michela considers herself lucky to live in “permanent” accommodation, on the heights of Mamoudzou, the main town. In Mayotte, a department known as the poorest in France, four out of ten homes are precarious, according to INSEE figures.
Loose and unstable land
Coming to the island on December 19, Emmanuel Macron promised a special law to rebuild infrastructure in two years. But the construction site is dizzying: schools, roads and housing have been 80% damaged or destroyed, according to local elected officials. The geographical location of Mayotte is a headache for urban planners. Its brick-red earth subsides from year to year due to seismic tremors. During Storm Chido, landslides buried thousands of shantytowns, and many dead people still lie beneath the rubble. Among them, migrants from the Comoros, the neighboring archipelago.
In Mayotte, where migratory tension is very high, almost one in two people is of foreign nationality. However, “the inhabitants of the slums are not all illegal immigrants,” explains Marjane Ghaem, a lawyer formerly registered with the Mayotte bar. A good number of Comorians have lived on the island for twenty years and have a residence permit and a job. Only, they cannot find accommodation in permanent buildings, because French prices are too high.” From the end of the 1970s, however, France developed a social housing policy on the island. Here, the “SIM huts” (dwellings with modest tin roofs and colored brick walls) have partly replaced the traditional Mahorese mud dwellings. The rent of these HLMs is low. But not enough for a population 70% plunged into extreme poverty.
Rebuild sustainably
Above all, these “hard” constructions are poorly resistant to violent weather. After storm Chido, many of them were damaged, their tin roofs ripped open. “The State’s urban planning policy has difficulty adapting to natural disasters,” laments urban planner Benoît Jullien. New infrastructure projects overlap, without seeing the light of day, because those responsible for operations do not stay long on the island. »
The architect, who worked in Mayotte for more than twenty years, warns against the temptation to launch an emergency reconstruction mission. “We cannot simply find temporary solutions on an island in the heart of the ocean. Reconstruction must take into account the local environment. » Specializing in disaster relief, the Emergency Architects foundation estimates that it will take between ten and fifteen years. For the Mahorais, the ordeal is far from over.
