French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Madagascar for a regional summit has brought fresh attention to a long-running dispute over the Îles Éparses – a group of tiny islands in the Mozambique Channel claimed by both France and Madagascar. Despite years of talks, the issue remains unresolved – part of the unfinished business of decolonisation.
France controls the second-largest maritime area in the world, spread over 10 million square kilometres. About 27 percent of this is in the Indian Ocean.
The Îles Éparses (Scattered Islands) – Tromelin, Glorieuses, Juan de Nova, Europa and Bassas da India – are littered across the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the African coast. Most are uninhabited, apart from a handful of scientists and military staff.
Each island gives France control over 200 nautical miles of surrounding waters. This allows Paris to control more than half of the channel, a key route for global shipping.
The channel also contains significant reserves of hydrocarbons – so much so that it is sometimes referred to as the “new North Sea”. It also has rich fishing waters.
Sovereignty spat
Sovereignty over the islands has been a bone of contention between France and its former colony Madagascar since the Indian Ocean island gained independence in 1960.
The Scattered Islands were administratively attached to Madagascar from 1895 onwards and in 1960 France placed them under French authority, arguing they were not part of the independence agreement.
Madagascar disagrees. It says the colonial boundaries of its territory should have remained the same when independence was granted.
In 1979, the United Nations passed a non-binding resolution asking France to return the islands.
Separately, Mauritius also lays claim to Tromelin.
“France is in a somewhat more constrained position than it appears,” Denys-Sacha Robin, an expert in international maritime law at Paris-Nanterre University, told the French news agency AFP.
“These requests for retrocession are matters of national identity, access to resources, and also used as leverage to obtain other concessions from France,” he said – underlining issues like immigration or security.
Attempts at resolution
Bilateral negotiations in 1990 and 2016 over the future of the disputed islands failed to deliver.
But in May 2019, the presidents of France and Madagascar announced they were ready to cooperate on the issue.
Relations soured a few months later, however, when President Emmanuel Macron became the first French head of state to set foot on one of the disputed islands, Grande Glorieuse.
His public statement that "This is France" angered Antananarivo.
The two countries then agreed to form a joint commission to discuss the future of the islands. But while the commission was meant to find a shared management or administrative arrangement, progress has been slow.
In a further complication, Russia is supporting Madagascar's claim, as well as the claim by Comoros over Mayotte, another French overseas territory in the region.
In a bid to maintain good relations with Malagasy President Andry Rajoelina, Macron is expected to push for the joint commission to be rebooted.
