Macron’s empire is falling apart

‘Maoré na Farantsa paka tcho!’, Emmanuel Macron declared five years ago campaigning in Mamoudzou, speaking the local language of Shimaoré in the capital city of Mayotte, a French-ruled archipelago-commune in the Indian Ocean. Translation: Mayotte and France, for ever, in life until death. The French president returned to the islands this week to play emperor but his empire looks like it’s falling apart. 

Even by the standard of Macron’s habitual wishful thinking, Mayotte is a disaster. Like much of the French empire – an empire that pretends not to be one – Macron indulges a fantasy that its remote colonies are really just part of France itself. Racked with riots, crime and poverty, the latest problem in Mayotte is a flux of African refugees hated by the locals.  

Few French people could find Mayotte on a map and its economic contribution to the country is negative. Other than conceit, it’s incomprehensible why France insists on keeping its tricolor flying here.