Mayotte, a remnant from the French colonialism of Arab land

In his attack on "illegal immigration and foreign violence," French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin could find no better symbol of his intention and determination to put forward his ideas for combating immigration than the island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. In August 2022, he announced his intention to reform the law granting jus soli (right of the soil) on the island.

Jus soli is the legal principle that grants citizenship to non-French people born on French soil automatically. It is the clause that was amended in the new French immigration law in 2023, despite facing sharp criticism. The amended clause requires the applicant to express their desire to obtain citizenship by submitting an application between the ages of 16 and 18. The application is then submitted to a committee for review, which may accept or reject it.

An immigrant who hates immigrants

The irony is that Darmanin, the far-right politician who has dedicated his political and ministerial activity to fighting "foreign delinquents," as he calls them, hardly misses an opportunity to pay tribute to the man he was named after, his maternal grandfather, Algerian immigrant Moussa Ouakid, born in the town of Ouled Ghalia, and his mother Annie Ouakid, a cleaning lady who worked all day ironing the neighbors' clothes to provide her son with a better life!

Apart from this irony, from the contentious immigration crisis, and from the veiled colonialism practiced by France in Africa, which in recent years saw a renaissance in the resistance to French influence, Mayotte, located within the Comoros archipelago, has a special feature, as it is French overseas territory, with which France does not need a local political system colluding with it, nor veiled colonialism. Perhaps the situation in Mayotte is closer to a "deposit from the time of direct colonialism," or "direct colonialism with retroactive effect"!

Mayotte is stuck in the same geopolitical reality as Réunion near Mauritius, the island of Martinique near Trinidad and Tobago, the Guadeloupe Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and the Guyana region on the borders of Brazil and Suriname. All of these are French provinces located outside France's natural borders.

The 'perfumed islands' of the Indian Ocean

The Union of the Comoros, located in the Indian Ocean between the shores of Tanzania, Mozambique, and Madagascar, is a melting pot of African, Middle Eastern, and European cultures. The majority of the population are Muslims, accounting for up to 98% of the total population.

Historians believe that humans first settled in Comoros in the 6th century AD, when some people migrated from Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania and settled in the islands. They were followed by those from the Arabian Gulf, the Malay Archipelago, and Madagascar. With repeated visits by Muslims, the Comoros became an important center for maritime trade, as it was home to coral, ylang-ylang, ivory, beads, spices, and gold.

The Comoros are called the perfumed Islands for the abundance of plant life and their natural beauty. It is considered a poor country, with 50% of its population living below the poverty line.

Geographically, the Comoros is an archipelago of four islands, while the Union of the Comoros currently consists of only three islands: Nzwani, Mohéli, and Grande Comore. The city of Moroni is its official capital.

The fourth island is Mayotte, which is under French rule. It is a small archipelago with an area of 376 square kilometers, consisting of two main islands: Grande Terre and Petite Terre. It is about 70 kilometers from the island of Nzwani.

A journey from "colony" to "province"

Mayotte first made it onto European maps in 1527 when Portuguese explorer Diogo Ribeiro drew a map of the Comoros Archipelago, which included the French territory. French and English explorers flocked to the island after the incident, and in 1843, Mayottee officially became a French colony.

The original name of the island is its ancient Arabic name, the "Island of Death" (Mawt). It was so named because it is surrounded by coral reefs that wreck ships coming to it. The French distorted the name to Mayotte.

The French justified their occupation of Mayotte by the fact that its people had rejected independence or joining the Comoros every time a referendum was held, unlike the other islands that chose independence from France in favor of a union with the Comoros.

The percentage of those who support remaining within the French Republic rose from 64% in the 1974 referendum to 99.4% in the second referendum in 1976 before falling to 73% in the third referendum in 2000 and rising again to 95.2% in the 2009 referendum. In 2011, Mayotte became the fifth overseas territory and the 101st French department, and in 2014 it was designated as a "very remote region of the European Union".

Arab and Islamic demands to no avail

The Comoros, which refused to recognize the results of the referendum and considered France an occupying power in Mayotte, made every diplomatic effort to regain the island. It joined the Organization of African Unity in 1975 and the Arab League in 1993. The OAU adopted its position rejecting the referendum and approved it while the Arab League only emphasized in the closing statement of the summit the Comorian identity of the island without fully adopting the Comoros' position against France.

French officials had expressed that there was a link between the renewed Comoros demand for the independence of Mayotte and the good relationship between Iran and the Comoros. These good ties date back to the time of former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, who held office from 2006 to 2011 and studied in Iran. However, the Comoros severed ties with Iran in 2016 in line with other Arab countries over Tehran's position on the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen as the Islamic Republic was condemned of interfering in Arab affairs. Moreover, Sambi was sentenced to life in prison in 2022, and none of those events changed anything when it came to the state's official position of the state, as it was still demanding that the island be returned to it.

How occupation becomes legal

The French position is based on the results of repeated self-determination referendums, which, regardless of their legitimacy and the validity of their results, do not legally justify France's occupation of the island or grant it ownership rights.

This issue has sparked global legal debate, given the peculiarity of the idea of holding referenda on each island separately in what is seen politically and geographically as a single state. The unity of the territories of states is a fixed notion that is not dealt with in a fragmented manner by holding referenda in one region independently of the other.

These referendums are also being held in the face of a tenfold difference in per capita income between the inhabitants of Mayotte and the other regions of the Comoros, which is a sufficient reason to understand the choice of some of the island's inhabitants to remain under French rule. It also explains the migration of some Comoros citizens to it via "kwassa-kwassa" boats, living in tin shacks in poor neighborhoods, and France's ongoing campaigns to expel them and accuse them of causing violence in Mayotte.

Comoros refuses to receive its citizens who had been deported from Mayotte and prevents ferries carrying them from docking at its ports in line with the official position that considers them Comorians on Comorian land and that there is no justification for expelling them from it. It believes that receiving them is an acknowledgment of France's right to expel Comorian citizens to the Comoros and to give this expulsion a legitimacy it does not merit.

The kwassa-kwassa boats became notorious after the joke made by French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to the Brittany region in northwestern France in early June 2017. He said chuckling, "The kwassa-kwassa doesn't do much fishing, it carries Comorian," which sparked angry reactions and demands for an apology. The memory of these boats is associated with a real tragedy, as attempts by Comoros citizens to find a better life in France have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people by drowning in recent years.

Divide and conquer

Despite the fact that the inhabitants of Mayotte have preserved their Arab, Islamic, and Comorian identity in terms of clothing, language, and other aspects, a significant percentage of them support the expulsion of Comorian migrants, influenced by the official French discourse. They even go so far as to outbid each other by demanding that France be more stringent in enforcing this law. This Comorian-Comorian discord, of course, is not spontaneous or far from French interference.

While reality, according to this narrative, may seem to support the French position, in that any state has the right to control its borders and regulate the movement of people entering and leaving it, this approach should not overlook the fact that France has no right to rule the island in the first place. Nor should it overlook the fact that the relative privileges enjoyed by the island's inhabitants compared to other Comoros citizens are funded by a portion of their own country's wealth, not French generosity. Nor should it overlook the low per capita income in Mayotte itself compared to other French departments, which in turn live off Africa's wealth.

French experts acknowledge that the administrations of overseas territories suffer from a lack of resources and state aid compared to the administrations of French departments located within the mainland. Mayotte, in particular, suffers more than any other of these departments. Its inhabitants, who are rich compared to the people in their vicinity, the Comoros, are called "the poor of France," despite the fact that it is located on the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, which is a major route for world trade, giving it a strategic importance for France. Statistics show that about 80% of the world's oil consumption passes through this channel from the Gulf states.

France never ceases to interfere in the internal affairs of the Comoros at every stage of its democratic political process. This forces any elected president to strike a balance between continuing to demand the independence of Mayotte and its return to its natural place as part of the Comoros and adopting a diplomatic language that is as calm as possible in dealing with this issue in order to avoid provoking France, which is capable of inciting and mobilizing the opposition against him to the point of overthrowing him. French interests in the Comoros remain the gateway to its presidency, and French economic weight there still maintains its strength to this day.

France's negative diplomatic in the Comoros is not new. When Comorian Prime Minister Ahmed Abdallah Ben Abderrahman (1919-1989) insisted on declaring his country's independence unilaterally and on its right to Mayotte, France entrusted French mercenary Robert Denard, known as "Bob Denard" (1929-2007), with organizing a military coup against him. After Ali Soilih (1937-1978) took power, Ahmed Abdallah overthrew him with the help of his rival Denard this time. Abdallah rewarded Denard by appointing him head of the presidential guard, and when he decided to dismiss him, he was assassinated in 1989. Denard was later involved in coups against two other presidents, becoming "the most famous French coup maker in Africa."

When France put Denard on trial for his actions in the Comoros, he said that he had carried out the tasks assigned to him by Paris, that he had worked under the supervision and guidance of the French intelligence services, and that he had ultimately been "scapegoated" by the French Republic.

The hypocrisy between Crimea and Mayotte

This French hypocrisy is not far from the general Western hypocrisy that the Comoros has also exposed. Although Western hypocrisy is in no need of additional evidence to be exposed in light of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, which is being carried out with official American and European support, the case of Mayotte is also useful as an example. In an article in the Algerian newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, writer Mohamed Selim Qallala pointed to the irony of the European Union's refusal to the annexation of Crimea by Russia, as well as Lugansk and Donetsk joining Russia based on the results of a popular referendum while they recognized France's right to Mayotte under the same pretext.

Will Mayotte be an exception?

Historical progression confirms that no occupation or colonialism, no matter how diverse and different in form or name, lasts forever, and that the fate of every land is to return to its original inhabitants. This is something that happens automatically as soon as the cost of staying exceeds the cost of withdrawing, and it is something that does not seem far away in light of the growing outrage against the French in the Comoros, which is linked to the hostile rhetoric and violence they practice against those they call "migrants," and to depriving the citizens of Mayotte of rights similar to those enjoyed by other French people, as well as to their constant interference in the internal affairs of the Comoros and their support for and incitement of the opposition. All of this coincides with successive blows that France is being dealt in more than one place across throughout Africa.

It can be concluded that any popular movement that raises the slogan of independence will find greater acceptance, attention, and support from global public opinion, especially in the West, and especially after the aggression on Gaza has shattered American and Western lies about the nature of the Arab struggle for liberation and has awakened the masses to the facts and truths that the powerful Western media machine has long succeeded in hiding from them.