[BRIEF NOTE] Mayotte, Department 101

[rfmcdonald]

The electorate of the French-ruled island of Mayotte, the only one of the four islands of the Comorian archipelago in the Indian Ocean off of Africa's eastern coast to have remained under French rule, have voted in favour of their island's departmentalization.

The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte voted Sunday to become a full part of France in a referendum that will end local traditions like polygamy and curb powers of Islamic courts.

More than 95 percent of those who voted supported Mayotte becoming France's 101st department, the French government announced. Mayotte is currently an overseas "collectivity" with specific autonomy powers.

The vote means that by 2011 the Muslim-majority island will complete an integration with France begun in 1974, when Mayotte split from three other islands in its archipelago which chose independence and became the Comoros.

The African Union and the Comoros administration -- which sees Mayotte as a territory "occupied" by France -- have denounced the referendum.

Several hundred people marched Sunday to the French embassy in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, and burned a French flag as they sang their national anthem to protest against the Mayotte referendum, a diplomat there said.

The Comoros have seen frequent coups since independence and are poorer than Mayotte, whose relative wealth makes it a magnet for illegal migrants who make a perilous boat journey there.

About a third of the 200,000 residents of Mayotte have arrived illegally from the Comoros.

"Our elders fought so that we we could remain part of France. It's up to us to finish that work," said Youssoufou Majouai, a 39-year-old gym caretaker, as he cast his vote in a school in the capital Mamoudzo.

"We have wanted this for a long time, to be like mainland France, with good schools and good salaries," said Inoussa Abdallah, 58, as he voted in Mamoudzou town hall.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the referendum as a "historic moment for Mayotte," his office said.

The vote follows unrest in three of France's four overseas departments, with the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe being the worse hit by rioting during a lengthy general strike for pay rises that ended this month.

All political parties and trade unions on Mayotte, which lies between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique and where French is spoken by less than half the population, called for a yes vote.

The only dissenting voices were some Muslim clerics who fear their influence will decline if French ways are imposed on the population, most of whom speak a dialect of Swahili.

Comoros and the other member states of the Arab League, along with other regional bodies like the African Union, have denounced this vote and called for Mayotte's integration into the Comoros, but for various reasons including the general population's support for political integration into France and their strategic location, France is not backing down. If anything, as France 24 reports, the French state is trying to deepen the separation between Mayotte and the other islands of the Comoros archipelago by (for instance) keeping out migrants attracted to Mayotte's much higher standard of living.

The growing number of illegal immigrants from neighbouring impoverished islands who arrive on this scenic island has however worried French authorities. According to some estimates, nearly one-third of the island’s 200,000 inhabitants could be illegal immigrants.

In 2008, about 16,500 people were turned back at the border, which is half the total number of expulsions registered by the French Immigration Ministry.

Dozens arrive every day and night from Anjouan, the Comoran island closest to Mayotte. Many of them risk their lives in small, unstable boats called "kwasa kwasa," sailing in dangerous, shark-infested waters. The tiny French enclave of Mayotte is rich, a virtual El Dorado by the standards of the Comoros archipelago.

Mayotte’s detention centre on the island of Pamandzi, is full to capacity. A new building is being constructed, which will be finished within two years. "People do not stay here for long - 24 hours, maximum," a police officer at the detention centre told FRANCE 24’s Lucas Menget.

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For centuries, these islanders have traversed these waters, visiting neighbouring islands. But since 1995, residents of the islands around Mayotte cannot visit the French dependency freely. France has put in place fast patrol boats, radars and thermal night vision goggles to try to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.