A French court has halted the controversial clearance of a slum, and the expulsion of migrants from the French Indian Ocean island territory of Mayotte. The expulsion plan has provoked clashes between locals and security forces, and sparked tensions with neighbouring Comoros, where boatloads of returned migrants are being refused landfall. What is going on?
Mayotte is France's poorest department. The other three islands making up the Comoros archipelago - Mohéli, Anjouan and Grande Comore- have been independent since a referendum in 1974. Poverty is deep and endemic in the Republic of the Comores.
