For him, this would have “no effect” against illegal immigration. The Renaissance president of the Assembly's Law Committee Sacha Houlié said he was opposed this Saturday to the suppression of land law in Mayotte, which must be the subject of an upcoming constitutional revision. “Would a questioning of land law be effective and produce effects (…)? The answer I give is no,” declared Sacha Houlié on the stage of the RTL/M 6/Le Figaro Grand Jury.
According to the elected official from Vienna, illegal migrants “come because Mayotte has 9,000 euros of GDP per inhabitant and although it may seem incredibly low seen from the mainland (…) it is incredibly high for all countries of the area”, starting with the neighboring Comoros, he argued. These populations therefore make the crossing to “benefit from the best public services in the region, the hospital, the school services. (….) It is not because we withdraw nationality that these people will stop coming,” he argued.
A revision of the Constitution necessary
Sacha Houlié also argued that part of illegal immigration now came from “people from Great Lakes Africa who do not come to ask for residence permits, but for asylum. And on the right to asylum, the nationality code, that is to say land law, will have no effect,” he assured.
The abolition of the right of soil in Mayotte - that is to say the acquisition of French nationality to anyone born in the department - is a proposal from Emmanuel Macron, who fears "a collapse of public services on the island ". As such, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin must submit a text "before the summer", which will notably require a constitutional revision, and therefore the agreement of at least 3/5th of the parliamentarians meeting in Congress.
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Will a majority emerge? “On the constitutional revision, we will see. I think things are a little more complicated,” Sacha Houlié evaded. “I understood that some, in our opposition, would play a major role in one-upmanship so that this abolished land law does not only concern Mayotte, which would in fact compromise the constitutional revision on this subject,” he explained.
Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, has 310,000 inhabitants, according to official figures that are probably largely underestimated, including 48% immigrants from the Comoros and other African countries.