France's Macron says tour of cyclone-devastated Mayotte is a day he won't forget
French President Emmanuel Macron has traveled to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey the devastation wreaked by Cyclone Chido
MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Thursday in the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte to survey Cyclone Chido’s destruction and was immediately confronted with a first-hand account of devastation across the French territory.
“Mayotte is demolished,” Assane Haloi, a security agent, told Macron after he stepped off the plane.
Macron had been moving along in a line of people greeting him when Haloi grasped his hand and spoke for a minute about the harrowing conditions the islands faced without bare essentials since Saturday when the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through the French territory off the coast of Africa.
“We are without water, without electricity, there is nowhere to go because everything is demolished,” she said. “We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep.”
