French presidential candidate Édouard Philippe has proposed establishing a detention and return centre in East Africa to process irregular migrants overwhelming the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, placing immigration at the centre of his 2027 campaign during a two-day visit to the archipelago.
The former prime minister, who served under Emmanuel Macron from 2017 to 2020, plans to suspend asylum applications, birthright citizenship, and family reunification in Mayotte for the full five-year presidential term if elected. He also called for a broader moratorium on immigration pathways, including family immigration. Left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon dismissed the proposals as "aberrant, ridiculous, and provocative", prompting Philippe to invite him to witness the crisis firsthand.
Mayotte, a French department of roughly 323,000 people, is about half foreign nationals, mainly from Comoros, with additional asylum seekers from the Great Lakes region. A 2025 law already tightened birthright citizenship rules on the island.