Estelle Youssouffa, voice of Mayotte, enters the National Assembly

by time news

On October 22, 2019, when Emmanuel Macron arrived in Mamoudzou, the prefecture of Mayotte, Estelle Youssouffa, all dressed in white and draped in a tricolor flag, had tried, in vain, to cross the security cordons drawn up around the president of the Republic. Until being taken on board, placed in police custody and then indicted for “disturbing public order” and “rebellion”, grievances which ended in a dismissal some two years later, in September 2021.

Tuesday, June 21, 2022, Zéna M’Déré, the leader of the Chatouilleuses movement in the 1970s, wore all in black and wearing a red kichali scarf embroidered with yellow ylang-ylang flowers. women who fought for Mayotte not to be attached to the Comoros -, that the president of the Collective of citizens of Mayotte, elected deputy of the 1re constituency of Mayotte, entered the National Assembly and was able to pose proudly in the Hemicycle. The one that the Mahorais have nicknamed “poutou mgowa” – nothing to do with the NPA candidate for the presidential election -, in shimaoré “Bird pepper”, a small pepper that stings very strongly, should even be received, Monday, June 27, at the Elysée by the overseas adviser to the Head of State.

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To sting, she stings, this 43-year-old former journalist, born to a Mayotte father, a non-commissioned officer in the national navy and a metropolitan mother, a nurse at the Mayotte hospital center, a graduate in journalism and international relations, who exercised , among others, on LCI, TV5 Monde, France 24, Al-Jazeera, before becoming a consultant in international affairs. But, above all, since the social movement of spring 2018, she has become the main spokesperson for the Collective of citizens of Mayotte. And the pet peeve of the state authorities, who fear each of his interventions, punctuated by a “Ra hachiri” – “we are vigilant”.

Indispensable interlocutor

Who would have imagined that this agitator endowed with a formidable sense of repartee, who masters the use of social networks perfectly but does not rely on any political training, could access the National Assembly? His radical positions on Comorian immigration and security, his outrageous questioning of the State during the crisis linked to Covid-19 – “Mayotte the plague-stricken has become the blind spot of a gesticulating Republic”, she wrote then – views of the metropolis, did not make it a credible partner. The executive preferred to rely on arrangements with local elected officials.

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