French state to pay Mayotte residents' water bills as crisis worsens

The French government says it will pick up the water bills of the 310,000 residents of France's poorest department, Mayotte, which is suffering its worst drought since 1997. But poor management of resources is also to blame for the Indian Ocean archipelago's water crisis.

Mayotte residents have had their water cut off two days out of every three for the last month.

And the water that does come out the tap is "brownish and unfit for human consumption", Estelle Youssouffa, one of the department's two MPs, told RFI.

Children have been sent home from dry schools and hospitals have seen growing numbers of people falling sick.

Given the “major worsening in services to the public, subscribers will not have to pay their water bills from September to December”, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced on Thursday in response to appeals for help.

The government said it also planned to increase the distribution of free bottles of water – currently limited to 50,000 "vulnerable" people. Additional supplies are to be brought in from neighbouring Reunion island and mainland France.

Some 300 soldiers and civilians will be deployed in Mayotte to ensure logistics, including 50 extra staff in schools.

Thirty health professionals are to reinforce staff in the hospital complex in Mamoudzou in the coming days, and companies affected by water shortages are to be offered “aid measures” some time in November.

Drought and poor infrastructure

Mayotte depends largely on rainfall for its water supply, but the archipelago is facing its worst drought since 1997.

The two hillside reservoirs that provide some 80 percent of Mayotte's drinking water supply are virtually dry.

People are anxiously awaiting the rainy season but even if it comes, as usual, in November, “it will take time to fill up the hillside reservoirs again” warned Gilles Cantal, Mayotte's prefect in charge of water.

The rainfall deficit is aggravated by a lack of infrastructure and investment, while the archipelago's population is increasing by around 4 percent per year, largely due to immigration from the neighbouring Comoros islands.

• Why are people being driven from the postcard paradise of the Comoros?

Racha Mousikoudine, coordinator of the Mayotte à Soif (Mayotte is Thirsty) collective, is sceptical over the government's announcement and blames SMAE – a branch of the Vinci group that manages the department's water services.

“The situation was created because the water network and water overall is badly managed,” she told RFI. “So SMAE must now respond to that. It's their fault.”

Paying water bills is all well and good but "it's not helping us to have drinking water,” she said, insisting that government hand-outs would be better used "to help people buy packs of water and avoid disease spreading in households".

“We urgently need water vouchers to be able to face the astronomical price hikes we're seeing in shops,” she said.

Paris has committed 35 million euros to plugging leaks in the water system, and says the two long-promised desalination plants will be completed by the end of 2024.

A third hillside reservoir is also planned.