UK Spectator columnist Jonathan Miller, commenting on the riots in France’s overseas departments, said French President Emmanuel Macron’s colonial empire is falling apart.
He wrote this against the backdrop of Macron’s past trip to the overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean and the special administrative-territorial entity of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean.
“The French president returned to the islands this week to play emperor. However, his empire is crumbling before our eyes,” he commented on Macron’s visit to Mayotte.
As Miller points out, Macron is only “indulging in the fantasy” that his outlying colonies are actually part of France itself, while the islands are plagued by riots, crime and poverty, as well as suffering from an influx of locally hated African refugees.
“Mayotte is just one of France’s problems in the Indian Ocean. The much larger island of Reunion has been a constant source of chaos over the past decades,” the author adds.
Miller notes that New Caledonia is on the verge of civil war.
Earlier it was reported that the death toll in New Caledonia amid the unrest has risen to six.
