State mistake ruined lives of 2,015 ‘stolen’ children

It was one of the France’s least known state mistakes but a policy of taking children from the island of Réunion and fostering them in rural France has finally been recognised with a ministerial apology for the psychological hurt and, in some cases, cruelty suffered.

But it is not enough for some survivors of the 2,015 children, either orphans or from families unable to raise them, who between 1962 and 1984, were ‘resettled’ to help reduce rural population decline... and cut the rising poor population in the Indian Ocean island.

A hostel in Creuse department was their first home before fostering and, now adults, they are known as les Enfants de la Creuse. Since being revealed about 20 years ago documentaries and books have detailed the psychological hurt the uprooting had on the children – they had no contact with their parents – as well as racist, psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

While some integrated into French society, coping with the damage, others could not and there were many suicides. Parliament and previous overseas ministers apologised and now Overseas Minister Annick Girardin has said the “terrible history” had to be acknowledged and every­thing possible done to help those affected. So far 150 of the 2,015 have come forward.

One, Jean-Philippe Jean-Marie, head of Rasinn Anler association for those involved, called the apology “a rose with thorns. “While it is good our story is being acknowledged it still has thorns, which include a skating over of the role and responsibility of the state.”

President Macron has admitted the state’s fault, but Mr Jean-Marie also wants him to give an excuse, an official apology from France, not just the government.

“So far all the work has been from the bottom up. I would like to see it come from the top down,” he told Connexion.
“I feel some financial contribution should also be considered. Some of us were liter­-ally slaves and we should be compensated.”Taken from his family as an 11-year-old, he was chosen by a Creuse family because of his strong arms and went straight to work in their boulangerie and looked after two handicapped children after school.
Teachers never taught him how to read or write, something he only learned when he “escaped” to national service.

He was reunited with his mother when he was 35 but by then relations between them were “broken”.

“The report talks of the transplantation of the affected children. But a transplantation needs to be done with care, gently, with good soil, and not the way we were treated.”