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Indian Ocean former colony votes to become French
AFP - Monday, March 30
MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AFP) - - The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte voted Sunday to become a full part of France in a referendum that will end local traditions like polygamy and curb powers of Islamic courts.
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More than 95 percent of those who voted supported Mayotte becoming France's 101st department, the French government announced. Mayotte is currently an overseas "collectivity" with specific autonomy powers.
The vote means that by 2011 the Muslim-majority island will complete an integration with France begun in 1974, when Mayotte split from three other islands in its archipelago which chose independence and became the Comoros.
The African Union and the Comoros administration -- which sees Mayotte as a territory "occupied" by France -- have denounced the referendum.
Several hundred people marched Sunday to the French embassy in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, and burned a French flag as they sang their national anthem to protest against the Mayotte referendum, a diplomat there said.
The Comoros have seen frequent coups since independence and are poorer than Mayotte, whose relative wealth makes it a magnet for illegal migrants who make a perilous boat journey there.
About a third of the 200,000 residents of Mayotte have arrived illegally from the Comoros.
"Our elders fought so that we we could remain part of France. It's up to us to finish that work," said Youssoufou Majouai, a 39-year-old gym caretaker, as he cast his vote in a school in the capital Mamoudzo.
"We have wanted this for a long time, to be like mainland France, with good schools and good salaries," said Inoussa Abdallah, 58, as he voted in Mamoudzou town hall.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the referendum as a "historic moment for Mayotte," his office said.
The vote follows unrest in three of France's four overseas departments, with the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe being the worse hit by rioting during a lengthy general strike for pay rises that ended this month.
All political parties and trade unions on Mayotte, which lies between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique and where French is spoken by less than half the population, called for a yes vote.
The only dissenting voices were some Muslim clerics who fear their influence will decline if French ways are imposed on the population, most of whom speak a dialect of Swahili.
When Mayotte becomes fully French, men will no longer be allowed to have several wives, Islamic courts will lose most of their power and equality between the sexes will be enforced.
Mayotte is seen as a strategic asset as Iran seeks to boost its influence on on the Muslim islands off the east coast of Africa.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month visited the Comoros on a brief trip aimed at boosting cooperation.
The Comoros federation's president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi trained as a religious leader in Iran.
France has four overseas departments, the far-flung remnants of an empire that once spanned the world.
Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, and Reunion in the Indian Ocean, are all integral parts of France and thus of the European Union.
Between them they have nearly two million residents.
Pacific territories such as New Caledonia and French Polynesia remain overseas collectivities that are also designated as 'overseas country' by the French government.
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People arrive to vote in Mamoudzou on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte voted Sunday to become a full part of France in a referendum that will end local traditions like polygamy and curb powers of Islamic courts.
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