Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has pledged to introduce tougher immigration controls in Mayotte if he wins next year’s presidential election.
Philippe, founder and presidential candidate of the centre-right Horizons party, made the pledge during a visit to the French overseas territory on Friday, where immigration has become a major political and social issue.
Mayotte, located in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros islands, attracts migrants from across Africa and the neighbouring archipelago seeking better economic opportunities.
Philippe said his proposed measures would seek to eliminate what he described as the factors encouraging migration to the territory.
“That is why I have proposed taking back control by shutting off all the valves that can fuel immigration to the territory of Mayotte,” he said.
Under his proposal, asylum applications made in Mayotte would be suspended for the duration of a five-year presidential term, along with family reunification applications and other grounds that could enable foreigners to enter the territory.
Immigration has been a longstanding source of political tension in Mayotte. In 2018, a general strike paralysed the territory amid demands for stronger controls on migration and concerns over the movement of people from the Comoros.
France also launched the controversial Wuambushu operation in 2024 to remove undocumented migrants, many of them Comorian nationals. Paris deployed about 1,800 security personnel to the island as part of efforts to address insecurity and improve living conditions.
Philippe defended the need for tougher measures, warning that failure to address migration pressures could lead to further unrest.
“We need to take measures that give the people of Mayotte some prospects,” he said.
“Otherwise, what’s going to happen? It will be very easy for those who go back to mainland France to say that they just have to put up with it. And there will be episodes of increasingly serious violence, as we’ve already seen.”
He said France needed to confront the issue directly and adopt policies aimed at ending what he called the “pull factor” attracting migrants to Mayotte.
Mayotte rejected independence from France in 1974 and became an overseas department and regional territory in 2009.
