The French Government announced this Friday additional measures to respond to the emergency situation in Mayotte due to the ravages of Cyclone Chido, in particular to partially restore water, which has been one of the main complaints of the population to the president, Emmanuel Macron.
“Yesterday, 80 tons of food and 50 tons of water were distributed to 9 municipalities. The 8 remaining communes of Mayotte will be supplied today,” acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on the social network of crisis that Macron organized by videoconference from overseas territory.
Retailleau pointed out that, by “sea, air” and through civil security production devices, “all means are in place to allow 600,000 liters of water to be distributed per day”, that is, two liters for each inhabitant of the islands.
Thus, this afternoon “almost the entire territory” will receive water through a network that will be fed two out of every three days in all sectors of the archipelago, for eight hours.
The minister indicated that there are already a thousand gendarmes and just over 800 police officers ensuring the distribution of food and normality in stores, banks, gas stations and roads.
These forces will be joined tomorrow by 200 additional gendarmes, while concerns about possible looting increase due to the precarious situation of the archipelago since last weekend.
The meeting that Macron held from Mayotte with different members of the acting Government, including Retailleau and the new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, was convened as the culmination of the visit he had been carrying out since yesterday.
Initially the president only planned to stay for Thursday, before leaving to visit Djibouti and Ethiopia, but given the demands of the local population to dedicate more time to them, he decided on the fly to extend his visit until this Friday.
In this context, Macron promised a global reconstruction plan, although he acknowledged that for now it is “impossible” to calculate its cost due to the emergency situation in which the island still finds itself, with great needs for medical assistance, electricity, water, food, transportation and communications.
He also announced that there will be a special law to dedicate more resources and the creation of a public institution for reconstruction, similar to the one created to restore the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris or to organize the Olympic Games.
In addition, he announced that on Monday there will be a day of national mourning throughout France and promised to return to Mayotte “in the coming months.”
During his time on the island there were moments of tension and rebukes, such as when last night dozens of people booed him, demanded his resignation and yelled at him, above all, asking for water.
“Don’t pit people against each other! If you pit people against each other, we are screwed (sic), because you are happy to be in France. Because if it wasn’t France, you would be 10,000 times more in shit,” he told a woman who had addressed him and blamed the Government for not doing enough, during a visit to an affected community.
These statements generated criticism from the French opposition, such as those from the environmentalist deputy Sandrine Rousseau, who reproached him for having “an arrogant attitude” and giving lessons.
The provisional figures of victims in Mayotte due to Cyclone Chido are 31 dead and 45 seriously injured, although Macron himself acknowledged yesterday that the toll “predictably” will be higher, but without venturing estimates.
