“You are happy to be in France because if it wasn’t for France, you would be 10,000 times deeper in shit.” That’s how Macron contemptuously addressed the people of Mayotte who were calling for water, food, and aid after Cyclone Chido devastated the island.

Over 100,000 people, and not just undocumented migrants, were living in the slums that were completely destroyed. How many have died? 1,000? 10,000? It has been ten days since the cyclone hit and authorities still haven’t been able to report on the number of casualties because whole areas haven’t received any help. The lives of the poor, whether they are French or from a different country, simply don’t matter!

Mayotte is French territory because 50 years ago France separated it from the other Comoro Islands, which were gaining independence at the time, thus dividing a single people with an artificial border. French imperialism wanted to retain a military base in this strategic part of the Indian Ocean but never sought to invest in developing the island.

Though Mayotte is not as poor as its neighboring countries like the Union of the Comoros and Madagascar—which were both plundered for decades during French colonization without ever seeing any meaningful development—half its population lives on less than 300 euros a month.

While a small elite has benefited from Mayotte becoming a French département, the working class doesn’t have the same rights as in mainland France: the minimum wage is 300 euros lower and welfare benefits are half as much. There isn’t enough housing or schools. Even before the cyclone struck, water was cut off several days a week and the island’s only hospital had already hit overcapacity.

Despite warnings about the severe intensity of Cyclone Chido, the government had absolutely no emergency plan—no boats, equipment, rescuers or builders ready to help out immediately after the storm. Macron couldn’t stop boasting about how France did such a good job hosting the Olympic Games, and this is how the country provides assistance. And the people are supposed to thank France for that?

The state was slow to provide relief and the means to rebuild the island’s infrastructure but quick to deploy police, the army and even armored vehicles for fear of a revolt. To deflect anger, local politicians backed by government officials, including Retailleau and Macron, put the blame on the “pressure of immigration” which they say weighs on Mayotte.

While survivors are busy rebuilding makeshift homes, Macron has announced a special law to demolish slums and deport foreigners “faster and more firmly”!

But evicting Comorians or other Africans will not rebuild Mayotte. Water shortages year-round are not due to an excess of migrants. They are due to the fact that the company responsible for water distribution, an affiliate of Vinci, continues to pocket millions in state funds without ever guaranteeing access to water or improving water networks. The cost of living in Mayotte is particularly high and that’s because two companies, Carrefour-Hayot and Sodifram, control 84% of the archipelago’s food market and the giant shipping company CMA CGM charges monopoly prices.

Macron’s disdain for Mayotte is not only colonial contempt, it’s class contempt. It’s the contempt of those who govern in the service of capitalists for those who make society run but live poorly.

Even in imperialist countries made rich through the plundering of poor countries, state budgets aren’t designed to make hospitals, schools, emergency services and other vital services run better. They are designed to help companies like Vinci, CMA CGM, Carrefour and other capitalists make more and more profits.

Laws are designed to make it easier to exploit workers, fire them and plunder resources—even if it means ensuing crises and human, social and environmental disasters.

Here, like in Mayotte, politicians sow division among the exploited to divert attention away from the capitalists responsible for these disasters. They seek to pit native workers against foreigners, the employed against the jobless, private-sector employees against public-sector ones. We mustn’t fall into this trap.

To stop the disaster this revolting social order is bringing us to, the exploited mustn’t be divided, instead they must all unite together and organize to overthrow the capitalists’ dictatorship over society.

Nathalie Arthaud