Coronavirus: Overseas Minister Annick Girardin visits Mayotte

From this Tuesday, May 19, the Minister of Overseas, Annick Girardin, is visiting the only French department which has not yet officially started its deconfinement process: Mayotte. The archipelago located in the Indian Ocean is the ultra-marine territory most affected by the coronavirus, with currently 1,370 cases and 18 deaths for 270,000 inhabitants.

Read also: Coronavirus: critical situation in Mayotte, only department not deconfigured on May 11

On Twitter, the minister said that her trip, not surprisingly "placed under the sign of health protection" , would last two days. "I bring with me 6.5 tonnes of sanitary freight, 1 test machine, 9 respirators" , underlined Annick Girardin, who started his visit with a point "with the elected representatives of the territory and the various State services present on site " .

The minister's visit comes the day after the reopening of small businesses in the archipelago, announced Friday by the prefect of Mayotte Jean-François Colombet. A " first turning point in the fight against the virus" which "must be accompanied by measures to strengthen the protections of the Mahorais," insisted the prefecture in a press release.

Read also: Still in red, Mayotte reopens its small businesses

Several aggravating factors

In October 2019, the minister visited the archipelago with Emmanuel Macron. The president had come to inspect the device put in place as part of a plan against illegal immigration, and had also announced the creation of a regional health agency specific to Mayotte. In operation since January 1, 2020, this agency is experiencing its baptism of fire with the coronavirus pandemic.

Read also: In Mayotte, Macron shows his firmness in the face of the immigration challenge

In Mayotte, the poorest department in France, this crisis is aggravated by several factors, in particular the weakness of sanitary means, the epidemic of dengue which currently rages on the archipelago, the collapse of the parallel economy of which many live Mahorais, unsanitary housing, wild gatherings, violence and degradations ...

To the point that the LREM deputy of Mayotte Ramlati Ali affirmed Friday May 15 during a meeting of the delegation to Overseas of the National Assembly: "The containment does not work" . A situation that Annick Girardin wants to remedy urgently. "Let's take Mayotte together out of the red zone ," she wrote on Twitter.