Indian Ocean Island of Mayotte rocked by dispute over French citizenship

A small part of France in the Indian Ocean is now at the center of a new argument about immigration laws.

Mayotte, a small island, has been owned by France since 1841. It is now considered a part of France, so it has to follow the same rules as other places in the country.

However, the territory’s tough time dealing with many immigrants is causing President Emmanuel Macron’s government to give up the fundamental French belief in equal treatment for everyone.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that people born on the island will no longer automatically become French citizens. He announced this while visiting the island on the weekend.

The government is now trying to make a change to the constitution for this. The “birthplace citizenship” rule will only change for the island of Mayotte, not for all of France.

But that’s the problem. Both the left and right sides of French politics have concerns about the reform for various reasons.

The left thinks it goes against the idea that everyone should be treated the same, and could lead to citizenship being based on race.

The right thinks it’s okay to change the rules for Mayotte, but they believe France should get rid of “birthplace citizenship” altogether.

The right of the soil says that if you are born in a country, you are automatically a citizen of that country. The opposite idea is called jus sanguinis, which means that citizenship is only given to children of citizens.

For lots of people, especially those on the left, the right of the soil is very important. It shows that France is a symbol of caring for people.

Actually, in France, the right to citizenship by birth is not automatic. In the US, just having a birth certificate is enough to get a passport, but it’s not the same in France. A child born in France to parents from another country has to apply for French citizenship when they are teenager and show that they have been living in France the whole time.

However, the main idea is still valid. Being born in a place allows you to become a part of the country.

But things happening in Mayotte show how nowadays, the changes in population and lots of people moving to new places are making governments start to think about things that everyone used to agree on.

Mayotte is having a lot of people breaking the rules because they are scared of people from outside taking over their island.

Mayotte is 70km away from the Comoros islands, which is a very poor country in Africa. Mayotte has a problem with small boats coming to the island, which is even worse than the UK’s problem with small boats coming from France.

Every week, many people come in boats from the Comoros, and now there are also more and more asylum seekers from the Great Lakes region of Central Africa.

In the hospitals on the island, over 10,000 babies are born every year, and most of their mothers are from the Comoros. Mayotte has about 300,000 people, but only half of them have French passports.

Since middle of January, groups of people have been blocking roads around the island. They want the government to stop immigration and deal with the crime they believe it brings. Political groups in Mayotte all agree on one thing: the droit du sol needs to end.

Estelle Youssouffa, a Mayotte MP from the independent LIOT bloc in the National Assembly, says that if we don’t change, we will always be confined by our geography.

“We will welcome all the sadness and problems from Comoros and Africa just so that people in Paris can show off their beliefs. ”

Ms Youssouffa says that everyone should feel safe and secure, and that this is a very important right. “Everyone has the right to move around freely. ” We don’t have these rights anymore because the violence is so bad that we can’t live a normal life.

The French interior minister is helping the people of Mayotte, also known as the Mahorais, because they asked for his help. He says that if the right to citizenship by being born on the island is taken away, the attraction to the island will go away.

Right now, most requests for regularisation are from Comoran families whose babies are born in Mayotte and are considered French. When the babies are not born in France anymore, people will stop coming.

No one knows if it is true or not.

Immigrants come to Mayotte not just for citizenship, but because life is better there than other places. And they say that even though the government promises otherwise, what happens in Mayotte could easily happen in all of France.

Nobody knows if that’s true.

It is clear that both the main and extreme right in French politics are openly discussing ending the right to citizenship based on birth on French soil.

For them, this is the kind of measure needed for the immigration crisis because there were a record 142,500 asylum requests last year.

The Macron government needs the support of the political right to make any changes to the constitution in Mayotte. Could they only support the reform if it was expanded to all of France.

Can they stop the new law for Mayotte because they think it’s too strict. And then try to win the next election by promising to end the law for the whole country.

The world is becoming different. It can happen.