Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin visits the 101st French department on Saturday and Sunday. The opportunity to take stock of the fight against unsanitary housing given the difficulties of re-housing families from slums.
On the edge of the national road that goes around Mayotte, Adidja, 33, is trying to sell some bananas to residents of the Majicavo district in the north of the island. Behind her, a mound appears to have been scalped, revealing red earth that looks like an open wound. One of Mayotte’s largest slums, Talus 2, has been here for decades. “I’ve lived there for eleven years,” says the mother of three. There they wanted to destroy our houses. I was devastated.”
On May 22, the excavators demolished the 162 tin shacks in the district, effectively launching the Wuambushu operation wanted by Gérald Darmanin to combat unsanitary housing, illegal immigration and insecurity in Mayotte. A month later, the Interior Minister returns to the 101st French department on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 June.
Adidja, a former resident of Talus 2, in Koungou (Mayotte), June 17, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
Adidja looks at the scarred hill and looks away. “I’m tired,” breathes the thirty-year-old. In addition to his banga Family – the name of the tin houses in Mayotte – she and her husband lost a small grocery store they ran in the neighborhood that day. For several months they had known that their lives depended on time. The order to demolish the slum was issued in December 2022 after an on-site social inquiry. The judiciary finally gave the green light in mid-May, after ensuring that offers of relocation had actually been made.
“They came to offer us accommodation for three or six months without being able to bring our belongings and far from our children’s schools, it’s unworthy. We still prefer to make ends meet,” sweeps Adidja. His family now lives “scattered” with acquaintances. “There is no future here, no hope,” she says.
Almost half of the resettled families
Adidja and her family are not alone. Of the 96 families expelled 70 living in the Talus 2 slum received a relocation proposal reserved for those legally residing in the area. Only 44 accepted the prefecture’s offer. “We have relocated around 250 people, that’s huge,” says Psylvia Dewas, who is responsible for reducing unhygienic accommodation at the prefect. In previous demolitions, the removal rate was often significantly lower.
Housing for families in the Talus 2 slum in Koungou (Mayotte), June 20, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
A few kilometers from the old Talus 2 slum, some of these resettled families live in modular prefabricated buildings surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. Among them, Toianti and two of her children were the first to arrive. Flip flops and flip flops are kept outside the door of the only room of their accommodation. “It’s stable here, I’m calm with my children, while it was complicated with Talus 2,” breathes the forty-year-old, wrapped in a flowered scarf.
Her son sits on the blue plastic floor, nods, and looks up from his cell phone. “It hurt my heart when they destroyed my neighborhood, but I’d rather live here, at least there’s no danger,” says Nastaoui. Even with the revision of his patent, which will take place in a few days, things are quieter in his new home.
Nastaoui, a former resident of Talus 2, has moved, in Koungou (Mayotte), June 20, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
Not everyone agrees. At the next door, Chamsia regrets her life before. They live with their husband and three children in the sweltering heat of the only private room they rent for a hundred euros a month. “We were put in a room without being able to take our things with us, it’s not family-friendly here at all,” complains the 44-year-old mother. Because of her foot pain, she finds it difficult to carry her metal saucepan from the communal kitchen from the ground floor to her room upstairs.
“We are doomed here. I can’t imagine my life tomorrow.”
Chamsia, former resident of Talus 2
at franceinfo
To separate the children’s sleeping area from the parents’ sleeping area, floral curtains were hung. But for reasons of space, the mattresses are laid on top of each other during the day and then spread out in the evening. Next to it is a closet full of clothes in all colors. “We’re just asking for chairs, a table and maybe a sofa,” slips Chamsia. We were promised a washing machine…”
Chamsia, a former resident of Talus 2, moved to Koungou (Mayotte) on June 19, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
“My heart was torn apart”
Some relocated families will not even have time to properly settle into their new home. Some of them could only get emergency or integration accommodation for a renewable period of three or six months. This is the case for about fifty people who are now living for free about ten kilometers from their old neighborhood, at Tsoundzou 2. A distance that without a car or public transport on the island can quickly become an insurmountable obstacle.
“Everything we were offered was too far from my siblings’ school,” explains Soihibou, the eldest of nine siblings who has spent his entire life with his parents in Talus 2’s tin shacks. So after twenty-five years, the family lived in a shared flat and, despite the promiscuity, preferred to move in with a cousin in the neighborhood. “He left us the living room where my parents and the little ones sleep,” explains the young man in yellow flip-flops and a blue T-shirt. I sleep with my cousins, whereas we used to have several houses for the whole family”. According to the prefecture, all children and young people from Talus 2 continue to be taught in their facility, despite sometimes longer transport times.
Soihibou, a former resident of Talus 2 in Koungou (Mayotte), June 17, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
Some residents have found refuge in the neighborhood’s white-and-green mosque, just across the freshly paved national road. Anicha’s family traveled a few hundred meters towards the rainforest to find a new home. But the wound is still intact. “I was on holiday here and the destruction started,” explains the French woman who now lives in France. It broke my heart when I saw my little brother cry.” The mother of two would like to bring the rest of her family back to Orléans (Loiret), but her parents, who only have a residence permit, have to stay in Mayotte.
“The work is gigantic”
All residents of Talus 2 know it: whether they are temporarily housed by the state or not, everyone must find a new home in the near future. But where ? In the 101st French department there is a dire lack of healthy and affordable housing. According to INSEE, half of the population lives on less than 300 euros a month here, and according to the prefecture, a third lives in tin boxes. “We are looking for a place to settle, but you have to save a lot to build a brick house,” says Soihibou.
“I want us to buy a property to settle down properly, with a solid house, not a tin house.”
Soihibou, former resident of Talus 2
at franceinfo
This dream could be realizable in the neighborhood for the less precarious families. A few days after the bangas were cleared from Talus 2, a new construction site has already settled on the hill. “After stabilizing the area, we want to build 50 houses and shops,” says the city’s mayor, Assani Saindou Bamcolo.
The mayor of Koungou, Assani Saindou Bamcolo, in his town in Mayotte, on June 19, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
A mayor’s will welcomed by the prefecture. “The sanitation measures make it possible to control the country. Then the town halls must have the will to build housing and find qualified people for the construction,” lists Psylvia Dewas. An encouraging start, according to the housing expert, who was deployed to the island in February 2022, although she acknowledges that “not all of Talus 2’s families will find a home” in this new neighborhood under construction. “The work is gigantic.”
New demolitions coming soon
The corrugated metal sheets of the slums are still nibbling on the vegetation along the national road. A month after the first demolitions of Operation Wuambushu, there is still a long way to go to reach the prefect’s target of 1,000 substandard housing units to be destroyed. There is no question of giving up, especially since the end date of the operation was never announced.
A destroyed slum in Koungou (Mayotte), June 19, 2023. (ROBIN PRUDENT / FRANCEINFO)
On Monday June 19, a few days before Gérald Darmanin’s visit to the island, a new demolition of Bangas began, a few kilometers from Talus 2. “It takes four to six months to carry out a full operation,” explains the prefect, Thierry Suquet, wearing a polo shirt and sneakers. The pace could pick up in July. “This week we are signing our tenth demolition order and we have at least five more in the pipeline,” says the state representative between the excavators on duty. Away from the group, the mayor of Koungou discreetly throws a word at the forefront of the prefecture’s fight against unsanitary housing. Another slum in the community could soon be on the demolition list.