Children of immigrants born in Mayotte, the French overseas territory situated between Madagascar and the African mainland, will no longer automatically become French citizens, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said late on Sunday.
“It will no longer be possible to become French if one is not the child of French parents”, Darmanin told journalists upon his arrival on the island, announcing the scrapping of birthright citizenship there - a first in recent French history.
Oh no, if the entire island were to emigrate to France they would have 270000 immigrants to deal with. Typical right-wing bullshit policy.
It’s true that this is coming from the right-wing french politicians. But it has nothing to do with immigration to mainland France though (read the article).
The situation in Mayotte is explosive: only a third of the adult population has a job, and 34% are registered as unemployed. You also have one inhabitant out of two coming from abroad. You have shanty towns growing everywhere. And in the past years, there has been a surge in violence between gangs, kidnappings etc… causing some inhabitants to install roadblocks in protest against the governement inaction. It’s effectively blocking the island, along with its economy, worsening the problem…
This looks like a desperate attempt to please the pissed locals to lift the roadblocks. So calling that a move to make sure the island’s inhabitants don’t go to mainland France is cliché and missing the whole context. This does not make the decision less controversial though. Nor useful…