“Bravo to them, I’m proud of my boys.” Ibrahim Chakir, coach of the Combani football team, in the French overseas department of Mayotte, wanted to focus only on the state of mind of his “kids” and less on the controversy surrounding seven undocumented “key players.” Banned from traveling to France, they received unexpected support from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) MP for Mayotte, Anchya Bamana. This is the same MP who has regularly urged the government to “really close” the department’s border, and who demanded that Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau get started on his toughened migration policy in Mayotte.
Beaten on Wednesday, November 20, by a team from Corte in Corsica (National 3) and eliminated in the eighth round of the French Cup after a victory four days earlier. The “Diables Noirs” from Combani (Regional 1) played a hard-fought match in Corsica, in a strong wind, but they were without seven key members of their starting line-up: four Comorian nationals, two Ivorians and a Madagascan. None of them have residence permits.
In the run-up to this high-stakes event for football in Mayotte, which was followed with passion on the island, a number of local elected representatives had discreetly approached the local prefect, François-Xavier Bieuville, to obtain what would have amounted to an exemption for these players. Bamana, who described the “Diables Noirs” as “the pride of Mayotte,” sent Bieuville a letter on Monday demanding the urgent regularization of the seven players. This would have enabled them to join their teammates in time for the Corsica match.
Special rules
Bieuville replied on the same day that a “special authorization” could only be issued “to a legally resident foreigner holding a residence permit.” This rule is specific to Mayotte, since a residence permit issued locally is only valid in the department. In his reply, Bieuville added that their files could not be examined as a matter of urgency. They were also incomplete. And that the requests presented a number of incongruities. Four of the players claimed to be “foreign nationals who are ill,” even though they were to take part in a sporting competition. And two “are unfavorably known” to the police and gendarmerie.
In his letter, Bieuville went a step further. He reminded Bamana of the blockade of the prefecture’s foreigners service by the Mayotte Citizens Collective 2018, which had received Bamana’s support. This made it “impossible to examine the situations of the people concerned” as it prevented the filing of asylum applications, “and the departure of those benefitting from them to France as a large majority would like.” Contacted by Le Monde, Bieuville expressed surprise that his letter had leaked to the press. “All I did was reply in accordance with the law and out of loyalty to an elected representative of the Republic,” observed the state representative on the island. “The State is politically neutral. This is a controversy that is beyond me.”
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