Is this just one violent upheaval among others in the long deterioration of security in Mayotte in recent years?
For two weeks, the small Mahorais archipelago in the Indian Ocean has been paralyzed by numerous dams, at the initiative of a citizen collective and many residents to protest against insecurity and immigration.
At the same time, violence is occurring in the poorest department in France.
On Wednesday, clashes broke out in Tsararano, in the center of Grande-Terre.
“Several dozen young people came to bother us.
They set fire near the pharmacy and the youth center
,” said the Mayotte gendarmerie.
The day before, clashes had broken out in Sada in the West, where hooded young people attacked the gendarmerie brigade with concrete blocks, forcing the GIGN to intervene.
And already on Tuesday, gendarmes had been victims of stone throwing and molotov cocktails.
Tried in immediate appearance on Wednesday, one of the perpetrators was sentenced to four years in prison.
Read alsoIn Mayotte, the exasperation of residents in the face of ultraviolence and immigration
Above all, several intrusions into educational establishments took place in a few days.
On Wednesday January 24, around fifty young people armed with machetes, stones or iron bars headed towards the Koungou college, in the north of Mayotte.
Among these young people
“who came to settle scores in the context of an inter-village conflict”
, a handful
“tried to enter the establishment”
before being put to flight by the arrival of the forces of the order, the Mayotte gendarmerie told AFP.
Closed establishment
Since then, the college has been closed and the vast majority of the 110 teachers have exercised their right of withdrawal, according to the college administration.
“We received a shower of stones (...) The college is below a road, in a basin, we saw the projectiles flying above our heads
,” Clémence Hébert told AFP, a PE teacher from the establishment.
“The situation is very anxiety-provoking, we will work in fear, all the time.
Since the start of the school year in January, concerns of this type have multiplied,”
she continued, assuring that she would exercise her right of withdrawal
“as long as security is not guaranteed
. ”
“It has become everyday life
,” laments
Anrifina Chanfi, general secretary of the autonomous teachers’ union of Mayotte, to Le
Figaro .
“The young people fight at night and there are middle and high school students among them.
Others come to take revenge and stone the buses which all have broken windows
,” he says.
According to several local media, a teacher from Dzoumogné high school was this time attacked himself this Monday on his way to work.
The images went viral on social networks, triggering astonishment.
The staff of several establishments have therefore decided to stop giving classes.
“We are afraid”
, wrote for example the staff of a college in Passamainty in a letter to the prefect of the department, demanding
“a truly dissuasive security system”
and supporting
“the movement of citizen roadblocks against insecurity”
.
“They extort money with machetes”
“
Since November, the violence has intensified, it is caused by the
“
dakou
”
, delinquents, young minors who arrived on the island with their parents who are often from the Comoros
,” testifies one of them, professor letter arrived in August.
“
They attack everyone without distinction.
Cars pass by, they get behind the trees and throw stones, put objects on the road and smash the car, racketeers with machetes…
” she says.
Visiting a college last Monday to try to respond to teachers' fears, the rector was even attacked - without seriousness - near an improvised roadblock on the return road.
“
We must ask ourselves the most appropriate means to
“
socialize
”
these young people, otherwise this insecurity will not cease,”
he declared immediately on
France Télévision Outre-mer
, ensuring that the safety of teachers was “
a priority.
” ".
“
Teachers should not go to work with a lump in their stomach.”
Read alsoIn Mayotte, immersed in the gendarmes who fight against the scourge of “road cutters”
“
It’s a state of lawlessness
,” deplores Nina, a 29-year-old teacher who deplores regular “scenes of urban war” with blockades of delinquents on the roads after 6 p.m.
“
It makes us want to leave Mayotte,”
she concludes while the academy is already struggling to bring in metropolitan residents
.
Asked by
Le Figaro
, the rectorate has not yet responded.