Children of immigrants born in Mayotte, the French overseas territory situated between Madagascar and the African mainland, will no longer automatically become French citizens, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said late on Sunday.

“It will no longer be possible to become French if one is not the child of French parents”, Darmanin told journalists upon his arrival on the island, announcing the scrapping of birthright citizenship there - a first in recent French history.

  • taladar@feddit.de
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    5 months ago

    Oh no, if the entire island were to emigrate to France they would have 270000 immigrants to deal with. Typical right-wing bullshit policy.

    • n0xew@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It’s true that this is coming from the right-wing french politicians. But it has nothing to do with immigration to mainland France though (read the article).

      The situation in Mayotte is explosive: only a third of the adult population has a job, and 34% are registered as unemployed. You also have one inhabitant out of two coming from abroad. You have shanty towns growing everywhere. And in the past years, there has been a surge in violence between gangs, kidnappings etc… causing some inhabitants to install roadblocks in protest against the governement inaction. It’s effectively blocking the island, along with its economy, worsening the problem…

      This looks like a desperate attempt to please the pissed locals to lift the roadblocks. So calling that a move to make sure the island’s inhabitants don’t go to mainland France is cliché and missing the whole context. This does not make the decision less controversial though. Nor useful…

      • taladar@feddit.de
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        5 months ago

        Sounds like exactly the kind of situation that would incentivize people who have the right to immigrate to France to want to move to France though?

        • n0xew@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Mayotte’s is part of overseas France, so I guess you are talking about mainland France?

          So yes it may be the case for some of the island inhabitants, who as French citizens can travel to mainland France. Surely and understandbly some do, but reading the press this isn’t really part of the debate. At the same time, these citizens are also the ones installing the roadblocks and demanding these changes. Mayotte is also the French department where Le Pen’s right-wing party got the highest score (42.68%!) during the presidential 1st turn, so that’s not entirely surprising.

          My point being, putting it under the scope of “this is mainland France government who wants to discourage immigration to mainland France” is wrong. A more accurate summary could be “this is mainland France governement giving in to demands of Mayotte inhabitants to discourage immigration to Mayotte”.

          • taladar@feddit.de
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            5 months ago

            Ah, now that makes sense, I think the problem was this part of the post

            Children of immigrants born in Mayotte

            which I read as

            Children of (immigrants born in Mayotte)

            while they probably meant

            Children (of immigrants) born in Mayotte