‘I felt abandoned’: children stolen by France try to find their past, 50 years on
‘I felt abandoned’: children stolen by France try to find their past, 50 years on
For decades, children from Réunion island in the Indian Ocean were removed to repopulate rural areas of France
Vidhi Doshi
Saturday 22 October 2016 19.05 EDT
Jean-Thierry Cheyroux, 56, doesn’t remember his mother’s face or the name of the road he lived on as a child, but when he sees the volcanoes from the aircraft window, for the first time in decades he feels at home. The last time he made this journey was in 1967; he was seven years old and flying in the opposite direction – from Réunion Island, where he was born, to France, where he now lives.
“I remember being on that plane as a child, and being so scared that I was crying. The stewardess had to take me to see the cockpit to calm me down,” he recalls now in a park in the capital, Saint-Denis, less than an hour’s drive from his childhood home.
His older sister, Jessie Moenner, sitting next to him, adds: “He was crying and screaming because he wanted to jump off the plane. He didn’t want to go to France.”
Jean-Thierry Cheyroux, 56, doesn’t remember his mother’s face or the name of the road he lived on as a child, but when he sees the volcanoes from the aircraft window, for the first time in decades he feels at home. The last time he made this journey was in 1967; he was seven years old and flying in the opposite direction – from Réunion Island, where he was born, to France, where he now lives.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/22/reunion-france-stolen-children-try-to-find-their-past
