Macron's Response to Islands After Cyclone: 'It Wasn't Me!'

Earlier this month, Cyclone Chido tore through the archipelago of Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, killing dozens, devastating many of the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, and leaving segments still without water or phone service a week later. On Thursday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron visited the main island of Petite-Terre, and he gave it back to the locals as good as they gave it. "I have nothing to do with the cyclone ... it wasn't me!" Macron pushed back at angry residents in Pamandzi who were expressing their upset at the slow aid efforts, per the AP.

"You've been through something terrible, everyone's struggling, regardless of skin color," he added, trying to soothe frazzled nerves. Then, as things continued to heat up, Macron became even more frustrated, telling the crowd they should be thrilled that Mayotte is under French control. "Because if it wasn't France, I tell you, you would be 10,000 times deeper in s---," Macron said, per the Guardian. "There is no other place in the Indian Ocean that has received this much help. That's a fact." Macron stayed in Mayotte into Friday before visiting Tsingoni on the island of Grand-Terre, where things weren't quite as confrontational but still tense.

"Seven days and you're not able to give water to the population," one man shouted at Macron, who replied, with a softer tone this time around, "I understand your impatience. You can count on me." The president added that he'd stuck around in Mayotte for a second day "as a mark of respect, of consideration." Reuters notes that Macron is known for occasionally making "off-the-cuff" remarks in public that irk the masses, and opposition lawmakers didn't miss their chance to attack him for the latest.

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"Completely undignified," Eric Coquerel of the far-left La France Insoumise party said. Sebastien Chenu of Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party also joined in, noting, "I don't think the president is exactly finding the right words of comfort for our Mayotte compatriots, who ... always have the feeling of being treated differently." French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Thursday that 80 tons of food and 50 tons of water had been distributed in about half of Mayotte's communes, with more relief set to arrive on Friday. (More Emmanuel Macron stories.)