By Sarah Miansoni
MAYOTTE, France – In late 2018, Abdou, a teenager from Mayotte, one of France’s overseas territories, applied to obtain French citizenship through jus soli (or droit du sol in French), also known as birthright citizenship. He met all the requirements: born in Mayotte, lived there all his life, and at 16 years old, he was eligible to request citizenship without parental consent.
But that year, after he filed his application, a new law entered into force. The 2018 asylum and immigration law contained one article applicable to Mayotte, a small island located 4970 miles from mainland France in the Indian Ocean.
Under the law, to obtain French citizenship, Abdou had to prove that at the time of his birth, one of his parents had resided legally in Mayotte for at least three months. Since his parents had always been undocumented, he could not provide such evidence, and the court rejected his request. “I think of myself as French. The only thing I don't have is the documents,” said Abdou, now 21.
When its provisions on citizenship entered into force in 2019, the asylum and immigration law stripped many people in Mayotte, like Abdou, of the right to obtain French citizenship through the jus soli procedure. Those affected are now unable to travel outside of Mayotte, study or find stable work, and face deportation to countries in which they have never lived.
The policy applies to all children born in Mayotte to non-French parents, who were minors in 2018 or born since, which could represent thousands of people. According to the French national institute for statistics INSEE, ten thousand children are born in Mayotte each year, with three quarters to a foreign mother.
The jus soli restriction was designed to dissuade illegal immigration, but legal scholars have argued that such a measure would not affect migration. It did however enshrine an already-existing inequality between mainland France and Mayotte. Lawmakers justified the measure by the intense immigration phenomenon in this overseas territory.
France had already adapted many of its laws to cater to the specificities of Mayotte, but this nationality law went one step further. Today, debates on the future of jus soli in Mayotte are ongoing, as some suggest its abolition. “Mayotte is a French department and therefore part of France, and having a completely different nationality regime there would undermine the equal enforcement of French law to all French departments,” said public law professor Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche, who specializes in migration and rule of law.
Ambitions cut short
Abdou’s parents immigrated to Mayotte, where he was born in 2002, from neighboring Comoros. With his three siblings, he grew up in Dzoumogné, a village north of the island. Despite lacking legal documents, Abdou completed his education in Mayotte and obtained his high school degree in 2020.
Abdou does not remember his family’s legal status being discussed during his early childhood. “I became aware of my situation in high school. There, I realized that I was different from the others,” said Abdou. “The teachers would talk to us about the future, they would tell us we had to leave Mayotte to study, but it wasn't really relevant to me.” Abdou knew that being undocumented limited his opportunities to study in Mayotte and abroad.
The rejection of his citizenship request came shortly before his graduation. “It really affected me, especially when it came to my career,” he said. “I wanted to be a computer scientist because that's what I studied at school, but I couldn't go on with my studies.”
He survived on small jobs, doing occasional construction work and running errands for acquaintances. Last September, he found work as a volunteer for the local branch of Caritas, a social service organization, where he supervises other volunteers and teaches computer science.
“These are situations that affect many people,” said Nadham Youssouf, Abdou’s colleague at Caritas. “Many children born in the early 2000s are now trying to obtain citizenship, but they are told ‘no, at the time of your birth, your mother or father was not a legal resident, so you cannot get it.’”
“Most of our volunteers were born here, have never left the island, have never been anywhere else but Mayotte, and when they leave school, they find they can't do anything,” said Youssouf, who said many who volunteer with Caritas are in similar circumstances.
Between 2018 and 2021, the number of approved citizenship requests through jus soli in Mayotte was divided by four, dropping from 2,858 to 696, according to data from the French Justice Ministry. The cases processed in Mayotte over that same four-year period also dropped by half. Although this suggests that fewer people have applied since the 2018 law was passed, the absence of comprehensive data on the matter makes it difficult to establish causality and to assess the actual deterrent effect of the measure.
A controversial bill
In 2018, the jus soli restriction was part of the controversial asylum and immigration law initiated by the French government. The text drew criticism from politicians, lawmakers, and activists.
The bill came in a tense context for Mayotte. From the beginning of 2018, the island had been gripped by a protest movement that would turn into a general strike and paralyze the territory for months. Chaperoned by citizens’ collectives, the movement opposed illegal immigration and required more government action to fight poverty and insecurity. Mayotte senator Thani Mohamed Soilihi proposed the jus soli restriction as a solution to the immigration issue, hoping to appease critics. (Soilihi did not respond to requests for comment.)
The jus soli measure in Mayotte sparked doubts about its constitutionality. Before the law was passed, critics argued that it would breach the constitutional principles of unity and equality of the French Republic. The Défenseur des Droits, France’s ombudsman, deemed the provision “an unjustified infringement” of these principles and worried it could affect children’s best interests.
But both the Conseil d’État and the Constitutional Council, France’s highest administrative and judicial authorities, approved it. They considered the measure only an “adaptation” of French nationality law, which responded to the “special characteristics and constraints” of an overseas territory like Mayotte. The population of Mayotte includes 48% of foreign nationals, compared with 7.8% nationally.
Several legal scholars still argue that the meaning of the word “adaptation” remains unclear. “This notion is flexible, elastic, malleable and highly variable,” said Professor Basilien-Gainche.
Elise Fajgeles, a former member of parliament who was the rapporteur for the asylum and immigration bill in 2018, said the jus soli restriction in Mayotte was “very deviant regarding the values and founding principles of the Republic,” but she stands by it. “We had to find a solution”, she said in a phone interview. “Was it the best solution? I don't know, but at that point in the discussion, it seemed the right thing to do.”
“A climate of constant fear”
In February, as a response to ongoing protests in Mayotte, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin suggested abolishing jus soli in Mayotte altogether, raising new legal challenges. But the prospect of additional legal restrictions does not solve the case of young people like Abdou. “The situation of these young people is a real puzzle,” said Elise Fajgeles.
Once they reach legal age, without any documents proving their legal residence in Mayotte, they risk being deported if they get caught by police. According to local associations, in recent weeks, about 60 undocumented people have been taken to the immigration detention center every day.
Social workers then have less than 24 hours to check detainees’ backgrounds for exemptions that could allow their release. (Being born and raised in France is no longer an exemption, since the adoption of the latest French immigration law in January 2024.)
“Immigrants from the Comoros live in a climate of constant fear. There are identity checks every day and if they're caught, they know they could be on a boat the next day. It's extremely heavy for them,” a local expert said.
To avoid identity checks and the risk of deportation, Abdou left his native village for the town of Kawéni, closer to his job at Caritas, to live with his aunt. Kawéni is known to be France’s biggest slum. Like Abdou, many of its 17,000 inhabitants are undocumented. Circumstances require Abdou to remain alert at all times. “Before leaving for work, I ask my friends along the way [to know where the police are],” he said. “It's always scary to go out, but I can't stay at home without trying to fight for myself. Every single day, I go out with fear.”
Visiting family is similarly complicated. “I can spend up to two months without seeing them,” he said. Abdou’s hometown is nearly 14 miles away from his current residence but with one single road connecting the two, the risk of encountering police on the way is too high.
In 2022, still unable to claim nationality, Abdou applied for a residence permit. The prefecture recognized his continuous presence and family ties in Mayotte, but ruled that he did not maintain “a stable and intense private and family life” on the territory and denied his application. The rejection letter came with a deportation order to leave Mayotte within a month. Almost two years later, Abdou is still there but worries about his lack of prospects.
“I'd like to have documents,” he said. “I know that if I had that, I would have the choice to do whatever I want. I still want to study so that I can have a better life.”
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