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Agence France-Presse

French President Emmanuel Macron extended his visit to cyclone-devastated Mayotte on Friday after angry residents vented exasperation and despair over the scale of the disaster.
Locals jeered and shouted their grievances on Thursday during Macron’s visit to the Indian Ocean archipelago, five days after Cyclone Chido left a trail of destruction in its wake.
“I decided to sleep here because I considered that given what the population is going through,” leaving the same day could have “installed the idea that we come, we look, we leave,” he told reporters late on Thursday.
“It is a mark of respect, of consideration.”


He replied testily, though, to a jeering crowd that chanted for his resignation and accused his government of neglecting Mayotte, which is some 8,000km (5,000 miles) from metropolitan France.
“You are happy to be in France. If it wasn’t for France, you would be 10,000 times worse off,” he said, using an expletive.
Emergency teams are still working at full pace in Mayotte, searching for survivors and supplying desperately-needed aid.
A preliminary toll from France’s interior ministry shows that 31 people have been confirmed killed and 2,500 injured. But officials say that, realistically, a final death toll of hundreds or even thousands is likely.
Chido also killed at least 73 people in Mozambique, on the African mainland.
As Macron inspected the destruction on the French overseas territory, local people were quick to air their grievances.

“Macron resign,” “you’re talking nonsense”, “water, water, water”, young people and mothers shouted at him on Thursday evening.
Macron finally blurted out: “I’m not the cyclone. I’m not responsible”.
During his visit to the Mamoudzou hospital centre, one woman told him: “Nobody feels safe here … people are fighting over water”.
And as Macron talked with hospital workers, one staff member said under her breath: “Two more days and we will not be able to feed the patients any more. I’m disgusted.”
One man in the group called the president’s attention to looting, saying thieves could easily enter houses that had had their roofs blown off, despite a nightly curfew.
“Mister President, we fear that this is becoming like Haiti,” he said in a reference to the poverty-stricken, crime-ridden Caribbean country that has been in a state of emergency since March.

Later, Macron said they aimed to have supplied all parts of the archipelago with food and water by Sunday at the latest.
He said France would rebuild schools, homes and hospitals, and also crack down on illegal immigration.
Macron’s visit came after Paris declared “exceptional natural disaster” measures for Mayotte late on Wednesday.
Located near Madagascar off the coast of southeastern Africa, Mayotte is France’s poorest region.
“The tragedy of Mayotte is probably the worst natural disaster in the past several centuries of French history,” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said.
Bayrou, speaking later to France 2 television station, set an ambitious target of rebuilding the island in “two years” through a “superhuman” effort.
In response to widespread shortages, the government issued a decree freezing the prices of consumer goods in the archipelago at their pre-cyclone levels.
Meteorologists say Cyclone Chido, which hit Mayotte on Saturday, was the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change.

An estimated one-third of Mayotte’s population lived in shantytowns whose flimsy, sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection from the storm.
Assessing the toll is further complicated by illegal immigration into Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, which means that much of the population is unregistered.
While Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants, the authorities estimate the actual figure is between 100,000 and 200,000 higher when taking into account undocumented migrants.
Additional reporting by Reuters


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France

France’s President Emmanuel Macron embraces a woman during his visit to Mayotte following the cyclone. Photo: AFP

France’s President Emmanuel Macron in a helicopter. Photo: AFP

French soldiers clear a road. Photo: Etat-major des armees via Reuters

Food and other supplies being unloaded from the French presidential plane. Photo: AFP

Macron to visit France’s cyclone-battered Mayotte, where hundreds are feared dead

Destroyed housing in Combani, Mayotte after the cyclone hit. Photo: Securite Civile via AFP

A satellite view of Mamoudzou on Mayotte on November 23 (top) before the cyclone hit, and after on December 16 (bottom). Photo: Maxar Technologies via AFP

France’s President Emmanuel Macron heads a crisis meeting dedicated to the situation in Mayotte. Photo: AFP

France’s President Emmanuel Macron with staff members and local elected representatives at the Mayotte Hospital Centre in Mamoudzou. Photo: AFP

A woman climbs a hill through debris of destroyed shelters in the village of Bouyouni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte. Photo: AFP

People search for belongings in the middle of damage of the slum’s precarious housing in the Kaweni conurbation of Mamoudzou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte. Photo: AFP

Damaged housing in the Kaweni conurbation of Mamoudzou. Photo: AFP

Hundreds feared dead as Cyclone Chido hits Indian Ocean French island of Mayotte

The aftermath of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte. Photo: AFP

Soldiers remove fallen trees. Photo: Etat Major des Armées via AP

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World

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Mayotte residents demand more help from the French president after deadly Cyclone Chido left a trail of destruction


Mayotte residents demand more help from the French president after deadly Cyclone Chido left a trail of destruction.


Emmanuel Macron

Natural disasters

Extreme weather