France’s efforts to appease locals opposed to immigration have failed to stop protests in Mayotte. But continuing tensions in the Indian Ocean territory and a harsh new citizenship law have reportedly led to fewer migrant crossings from the Comoros Islands.
Every year thousands of people from the Comoros Islands off the coast of Mozambique, or from mainland Africa, try to make the journey to the French island of Mayotte.
For migrants leaving the easternmost Comoros island of Anjouan, the last point of departure is the village of Kangani. But in recent weeks, the small wooden boats known as kwassa kwassa that usually transport migrants around 70 kilometers from there to Mayotte have remained tied up on the shore, according to a report by the news agency AFP.
Mayotte is part of the Comoros group of islands, but in 1974 it voted to remain part of France when the other islands became independent.
Half a century later, Mayotte is France’s poorest administrative region, but with French infrastructure, schools and hospitals, and welfare regulations, it is still doing better than its neighbors. For decades Comorans living in poverty have been tempted to risk the sea crossing, and it is estimated that migrants now make up just under half of Mayotte’s population of 310,000.
Anger among locals in Mayotte, blaming rising crime and poverty in the territory on immigrants, recently erupted with violent protests and demands for more action from the French state to prevent the crossings. Migrants in Mayotte say they are afraid to go outside for fear of being attacked by locals.
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Law is 'bad news for everyone'
The French government’s latest initiative to dissuade migrants from making the journey was a proposal to strip children born on Mayotte to non-French parents of the right to claim French citizenship, known as jus soli ('right of the soil').
While the move seems to have had little effect on the protests in Mayotte, AFP has heard from people who used to ferry migrants from Comoros to the territory that there is now much less traffic on the route.
"Abolishing the [right] of the soil is a bad idea for everyone concerned," one man Tafsir told the news agency.
Another man in his 50s, Ousseni, who described himself as a fisherman-smuggler, normally charges travelers between 400 and 500 euros a head to cross the strait to Mayotte, four or five times the average monthly salary on the archipelago.
He complained that the protestors were costing him "time and money," just like the Comoros coastguards who, he said, demand 200 euros from him per trip.
"The last time I was carrying a sick person. We were prevented from crossing and I had to come back to dry land. The guy died shortly afterwards," he told AFP.
Ousseni said that he sometimes transports cigarettes, and even cows, to Mayotte.
"[A cow] costs them 10,000 euros. It's a lot but still cheaper than over there," he said.
The boats that attempt to cross the strait to Mayotte often have to turn back because of bad weather, and sometimes they do not make it at all.
"No-one would take the risk of getting to Mayotte if we had any choice," a young man named Jeansi said to AFP. "Taking to sea is our only option."