French language gaining ground among adults in Mayotte / Le français gagne du terrain chez les adultes de Mayotte

Mayotte, an overseas collectivity of France, is located here, close to Madagascar:

and it's apparently one of the overseas territories where the French languages is least well-known:

French is the only official language of Mayotte. It is the language used by the administrations and the school system. It is the language most used by televisions and radios as well as in commercial announcements and billboards. In spite of this, Mayotte is one of the French overseas territories where the knowledge of French is the least developed, as shown by the figures above. At the 2002 census, only 55% of people older than 15 y/o declared they could read and write French, although this figure is higher than those who can read and write Shimaore (41%) or Arabic (33%).

In addition to that, Mayotte has one of the highest rates of population growth among the overseas territories with an annual increase of 5.8%:

Quant au taux d'accroissement annuel de la population, il est l'un des plus forts de l'outre-mer français avec 5,8 ‰.

and:

1958	1966	1978	1985	1991	1997	2002	2007
23,364	32,607	47,246	67,205	94,410	131,320	160,265	186,452
Official figures from past censuses.

which makes it a pretty obvious choice for the government to focus its efforts on, as 1) It's already an overseas territory, 2) The population is growing rapidly, 3) There's no other strong competitor there that French would need to compete with (English or Spanish for example).

On that note, there's an article in French here from yesterday on the apparent successes the government is having in getting people to learn French:

Depuis maintenant 2 ans, le Greta organise régulièrement des sessions d'examen du Dilf, le diplôme initial de langue française, qui permet d'avérer un premier niveau de français à des personnes reconnues non francophones. Le Dilf atteste d'un niveau de compréhension et d'expression orale qui permet de s'en sortir dans le contexte professionnel, socio-économique et de la vie quotidienne.

For two years now, Greta (a group of establishments for public education) has regularly organized test sessions for Dilf, the original diploma of the French language, which allows non-Francophones to prove their French speaking ability. The Dilf demonstrates a level of comprehension and oral expression that helps one in professional and socio-economic contexts, and in daily life.

Avec la mise en place de nombreuses "écoles des parents" dans les différents établissements scolaires de l'île, les candidats au fameux diplôme se multiplient, et en 2008 des sessions d'examen ont eu lieu en mai, juin, juillet, octobre et décembre, dépassant avec succès les 90% de réussite.

With the establishment of many "schools for parents" in various school establishments in the island, the candidates of the well-known diploma have multiplied, and in 2008 exam sessions were held in May, June, July, October and December, with a success rate of 90% for those taking it.*

Wikipedia also has the following on the recent success of French in Mayotte:

With the mandatory schooling of children and the economic development both implemented by the French central state, the French language has progressed significantly on Mayotte in recent years. The survey conducted by the Ministry of National Education showed that while first and second language speakers of French represented 56.9% of the population in general, this figure was only 37.7% for the parents of CM2 pupils, but reached 97.0% for the CM2 pupils themselves (whose age is between 10 and 14 in general).

Already there are instances of families speaking only French to their children in the hope of helping their social advancement. With French schooling and French language television, many young people turn to French or use many French words when speaking Shimaore and Kibushi, leading some to fear that these native languages of Mayotte could either disappear or become some sort of French-based creole.