Disease, demography, and the Debr Solution: stolen lives and broken promises, 1946 to 2006 and back to 1966

This essay will focus first on the 2006 chikungunya epidemic, then on the 1960s adoption policies that became part of the package of solutions put in place by Michel Debr, the then dput of Reunion, as a means of dealing with the twinned problems of population explosion and unemployment in the department. Reunion Island is the fourth, least visible, most isolated of the four original dpartements d'Outre-mer. Reunion seems to become significant and visible in public discourse only when it is the site of catastrophic natural, medical or political events. This DOM's challenge in the areas of health, life and equality in the face of risk must be grasped on its own terms and within its own contexts, not through the lens of Republican universalism.