France – La Cause du Peuple: Interview with the Ka Ubuntu Movement

We hereby share a translation of an interview published by La Cause du Peuple on October 29, which we have received per email.

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Our editorial team presents an interview with Ka Ubuntu, a Réunionese independence and Pan-Africanist organization working in Réunion and France to achieve independence.

Hello, comrades. Could you please introduce your organization and its political platform?

Ka Ubuntu is a pan-Africanist and independence movement from Réunion. We follow in the footsteps of our Maron ancestors (Anchaing, Héva, Pitré…) and the revolutionaries of Saint-Leu from 1811 (Élie and his comrades). We also follow in the footsteps of Serge Sinamalé and Jean-Baptiste Ponama, who officially founded the Movement for the Independence of Réunion in 1981, though the Réunionese independence movement had already existed informally prior to that.

Our movement has existed since 2020. Our first branches were established in France (Paris, Toulouse, and Lyon), as two of the founders were based there, and because the economic situation in Réunion forces our youth into exile. Since July 1, 2024, we have had a branch in Réunion, because the struggle must first and foremost be waged among our own people.

On the political front, we will publish our manifesto in 2027, the result of several years of work. It presents our vision of an independent Réunion in all areas. The program will then be developed together with the people. Our main priorities:

• independence, by gaining political power in our country and by having Réunion re-listed as a non-self-governing territory by the UN, in order to secure the support of other states in our struggle for sovereignty;
• popular sovereignty, with popular committees selected by lottery, the establishment of a binding mandate for elected officials, and recall referendums available to the people so they can hold political decision-makers accountable;
• an economy based on Ubuntu, with food sovereignty, public control of strategic sectors, and control over our resources;
• Reunionese as an official language, and an education system grounded in our historical, sociological, and geographical realities;
• Pan-Africanism, with “Afroséani” serving as a confederation of countries in our region.

Could you describe the current political situation in Réunion?

Réunion remains a colony, even though it has been designated a French department since 1946. The laws that apply there are passed nearly 10,000 kilometers away. The 2003 Virapoullé amendment, passed during a constitutional revision, even prohibits us from adapting laws to our realities—a possibility that is, however, available to Guadeloupe and Martinique, two other French island colonies (French Constitution, Article 73, Paragraph 5).

After 80 years of departmental status, the results speak for themselves:

• 36% of the population lives below the poverty line, compared to 15% in mainland France (INSEE, 2021);
• unemployment stands at 19% of the labor force (INSEE, 2nd quarter of 2026);
• nearly 150,000 people are living in substandard housing, and more than 51,000 households are waiting for public housing (Fondation pour le logement, 2025);
• 1,750 requests for emergency housing from families with children have gone unanswered (Fédération des acteurs de la solidarité, as reported by the Kolektif des associations pour le logement 974);
• Réunion imports 7.1 billion euros worth of goods and exports only 413 million euros worth (INSEE, 2024 Economic Report).

The high cost of living is suffocating families, and our young graduates are struggling due to a lack of jobs.

Politically, the loudest voice remains that of the departmentalists. A portion of the local political class has come to terms with the colonial system, through the patronage and privileges it affords. The autonomists, for their part, are calling for more authority without challenging the colonial framework.

Independence advocates remain in the minority, but the idea is gaining ground, and it is this voice that we want to make heard. Another path is possible for Réunion: we have our youth, our intellectuals, our elders, and a land and sea rich in resources.

In France, we are witnessing a strategic restructuring of French imperialism. Does this have repercussions in Réunion, and if so, to what extent?

Yes, and directly. The French army has been driven out of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. In 2025, it was forced to surrender its bases in Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal (AFP, January and July 2025). The French state is therefore falling back on what it has left: its remaining colonies. Thanks to them, it possesses the world’s second-largest maritime zone (Senate, 2022), more than 90% of which is located in the Indo-Pacific (Foundation for Strategic Research), and it proclaims itself an “Indo-Pacific power.”

Reunion Island is at the heart of this deployment in the Indian Ocean:

• The French Armed Forces of the Southern Indian Ocean Zone (FAZSOI) have their headquarters there, along with the Port des Galets naval base and Air Base 181 (French Ministry of the Armed Forces);
• more than 2,100 military personnel are stationed between Réunion and Mayotte, in an area of responsibility covering 14 countries in the region (French Ministry of the Armed Forces, 2025);
• The French government maintains a military presence on the Scattered Islands, which Madagascar has been demanding be returned since the 1970s (French Senate, Report No. 664, 2020).

This system also affects our youth. One in ten young people from Réunion passes through the RSMA, and 30% of those who enter it are functionally illiterate (RSMA of Réunion, 2026). The fact that the main path out of poverty offered to our youth without a diploma is a military regiment speaks volumes about the failure of departmentalization.

In the region, Mayotte serves as a testing ground for repressive measures. In 2023, Operation Wuambushu mobilized approximately 1,800 police officers and gendarmes to raze shantytowns and deport Comorians back to their home archipelago (Human Rights Watch, April 2023). In Kanaky, the 2024 uprising against the expansion of the electorate was suppressed under a state of emergency, with an official death toll of 14 (government response to written question No. 2585, National Assembly). This is how the French state treats peoples who demand their sovereignty.

This restructuring also has economic implications. Since May 1, 2026, the EU-Mercosur agreement has been in provisional effect (European Commission, March 23, 2026). It gradually opens the European market to 180,000 metric tons of South American sugar per year, duty-free (text of the agreement, European Commission). This directly threatens our sugarcane farmers, who are already dependent on a single sugar producer, Tereos. Our land is being used as a military base while our agriculture is being sacrificed to free trade.

In this situation, what political path lies ahead for the people of Réunion?

Independence, and unity with Africa through Pan-Africanism.

We want to lead an economic, political, and cultural revolution to build a way of life centered on living beings, not money. This means breaking free from the capitalist system and proposing an alternative to this extractivist model, which exploits people and depletes nature.

We know that this work will require commitment and energy. As Amílcar Cabral said: “Do not lead people to believe in easy victories.”

In concrete terms, the path we advocate involves three stages:

• diplomatic efforts with the states of the Global South to secure the re-inclusion of Réunion on the UN list, as achieved by Kanaky in 1986 and Polynesia in 2013 (United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 41/41 and 67/265) ;
• the independence movement’s attainment of local political power;
• a unilateral declaration of independence, without ruling out the possibility that this might involve a transitional phase—which must be temporary—so as not to become trapped in a neocolonial system where our country would remain under French trusteeship.

For us, the struggle is waged first and foremost in the streets, among the people. However, we will also participate in local elections, under no illusions about colonial institutions: for us, they will serve as a platform and a tool for raising widespread awareness.

Finally, independence alone will not be enough. An isolated country carries no weight in the face of the major powers. That is why we are promoting the Afroséani project. It would be a confederation comprising Mauritius, Madagascar, the Comoros, the Seychelles, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya.

Who are the friends and who are the enemies of the people in Réunion? What role can the masses in France play in the liberation process?

Our enemies are the colonial system and those who profit from it:

• the French colonial state, which makes decisions for us;
• the economic interests that profit from our dependence, starting with the few groups that dominate imports and large-scale retail, such as GBH, and impose their profit margins;
• that segment of the local political class that serves this system in exchange for privileges.

Our friends are, first and foremost, the people of Réunion in all their diversity: Kaf, Malbar, Yab, Chinese, Zarab, Comorians, and Malagasy. They are the workers, the unemployed, the farmers, the small business owners, the youth, and the diaspora. Finally, they are the neighboring peoples of the Indian Ocean and all peoples engaged in struggle—in Kanaky, Palestine, Haiti, and the Congo, among others.

The masses of France have an important role to play:

• to combat chauvinism and colonial propaganda in their own country;
• to publicize our struggle;
• to oppose militarization and repression in the colonies;
• to support our right to self-determination and, in due course, to carry out the revolution in France.

Their support is invaluable as long as it respects one principle: it is the people of Réunion who decide their own struggle and their own future.

The French section of the Anti-Imperialist League is calling for a broad joint campaign in October against militarization and French colonialism, to which Ka Ubuntu is a signatory. How does Ka Ubuntu assess this campaign, and what actions do you plan to carry out within this framework?

We support this campaign because it connects what the French state wants to keep separate: the struggles of colonized peoples and those of the peoples of Africa who drove out the French army. The military buildup in the Indian Ocean, the repression in Mayotte and Kanaky, and the control exerted over our unemployed youth are all part of the same strategy. We must respond to this together.

In this context, we are organizing the event “Independence and Food Sovereignty” on October 24 at the CICP. Food sovereignty is at the heart of our struggle. As Thomas Sankara reminded us, imperialism is also found on our plates, and the EU-Mercosur agreement is proof of this.

Do you have any final words?

Colonial propaganda has taught our people to doubt themselves. Yet our ancestors freed themselves on their own in the Hauts, risking their lives. Mauritius has been independent since 1968, and the Seychelles since 1976. We are capable of building our country by ourselves and for ourselves.

We are at a turning point: the wretched of the earth must wrest their independence. We invite all those who share in this struggle to join us.

Only struggle sets us free!