Mayotte citizens vote yes

REUTERS

NICOLAS SARKOZY

Relevant offers

OPINION: French President Nicolas Sarkozy fulfilled an election promise with the referendum on Mayotte's future, writes Cherie Sivignon in this week's L'expat.

France is to welcome its 101st department.

In a referendum a few weeks ago, more than 95 per cent of voters in the picturesque island of Mayotte said yes to becoming a French overseas department from 2011.

Until now the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte has been a French "overseas collectivity" part of France administratively, but with its own laws and customs. However, it will, over time, become a full overseas department, with access to the same law, health and welfare systems as mainland France. Economically, its residents stand to gain.

Mayotte is one of four islands in the Comoros archipelago, between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique. It is near the site of the Yemenia airbus crash last month that led to the amazing survival story of French teen passenger Baya Bakari.

Becoming a French department will mean a big change for Mayotte's inhabitants. With a population of just over 186,000, Mayotte is predominantly a Muslim country and most of its people speak the Comarian dialect of Shimaore, although French is the official language.

Much has been made in news reports about the required change in cultural customs. To get in line with the rest of France, Mayotte will have to raise the minimum age for women to marry, from 15 to 18 years, and outlaw polygamy. Its Islamic courts will lose most of their powers and taxes will rise.

For Mr Sarkozy, the March referendum in Mayotte fulfils one of his election promises to let the people of Mayotte decide their status.

The move is the final stage of a process that began in the 1974 when Mayotte chose to remain French, while the neighbouring islands in the Comoros opted for independence. Those neighbouring islands have been plagued by political instability ever since and claim Mayotte as one of their own.

Indeed, the African Union considers Mayotte part of Africa so the outcome of the referendum, though not unexpected, has caused controversy in that part of the world.

Mayotte and the other islands in the Comoros were ceded to France in the 1840s. France, like Britain, had a large colonial empire and remnants exist today. Other French overseas departments and regions include Guadeloupe and Martinique (in the Caribbean), French Guiana (on the northern coast of South America) and the Reunion island (east of Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean).

French Polynesia, including Tahiti, is a semi-autonomous territory of France while New Caledonia has its own status as a sui generis collectivity of France. New Caledonia's inhabitants are set to vote on an independence referendum this decade.

My husband Franck and I honeymooned in New Caledonia. It is an interesting place a real touch of France in the Pacific. Much to Franck's delight (though not his wallet), most of the food at the supermarket in Noumea was imported from France. I ate frogs' legs at a restaurant and we drank Ricard (a classic French aperitif) at a cafe.

It could all change with a vote for independence.

» Cherie Sivignon is a former Southland Times journalist who has moved to France with her French-born husband and their family.

- © Fairfax NZ News

Newest First

Oldest First