evidence: The French Interior Ministry started its Operation Wuambushu on Monday, April 24, in the overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean. This large-scale action to destroy shanty towns and expel migrants – the vast majority of whom are from the neighboring independent Comoros islands – is once again shining a spotlight on the island territory of Mayotte, which was the only one among the colonized archipelago not to have chosen independence in the 1970s, and which became a French department in 2011. [...] This is a reality, but it is not just the Comorians – 80% of the population of Mayotte is in poverty. Mahorais are poor, uneducated and difficult. Mayotte is the poorest department in France, with a per capita allocation three to four times lower than in mainland France. The problem is the lack of development of this island – whose population is no larger than that of a medium-sized city of 350,000 inhabitants – but to which the State does not give the means in accordance with its status as a department.