On the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, a French overseas territory and département (county), a police operation launched by Paris and codenamed Wuambushu has begun a crackdown against Comoran "illegal immigrants" who face eviction from their shanty town homes and deportation back to the nearby Comoro islands. The decision to launch the roundup is a political monstrosity and the prolongation of a crime, argues Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. While maintaining its sovereignty over Mayotte in flagrant violation of international law, he writes, France is staging a massive expulsion of human beings on the pretext that they are foreigners, whereas they are of the same people as Mayotte’s native population.
There is a supposedly elite French police unit, the "CRS 8", which, on the first day of its recent deployment to Mayotte, reported that it had fired 650 teargas grenades, 85 blast balls and 60 rubber bullets, and also used live ammunition on 12 occasions when bullets were fired at the ground to push back civilians who were resisting the officers.
