Marie-Germaine Perigogne is one of the 2,015 “children of Creuse”. Like her, many girls and boys were transferred between 1962 and 1984 from Reunion Island to the mainland, as part of a migration policy put in place under the leadership of Michel Debré, MP for the island from 1963 to 1988, to repopulate rural departments affected by the demographic exodus.
“When I left Reunion Island I was 3 years old. I have no memory of my birth until this plane where I have flashes, where there are very many of us, where there are many children of color. »
From the long quest for identity to recognition
Arriving in France in 1966, Marie-Germaine was first placed in an abusive family, then entrusted to the Lavauds, her adoptive parents from Creuse. At 16, she discovered that she was not their biological daughter, but a little Reunionese girl born in the Bois-de-Nèfles district, in Saint-Paul. “It was a tsunami of emotions for me. I felt anger, hatred, frustration and it’s terrible, terrible to learn such a truth. » She finds her brothers and sisters who are also exiled, then begins a long quest for identity which will lead her to find her biological father and to have her birth certificate corrected.
From this journey a collective commitment was born: she founded and chaired the Federation of uprooted children from the DROM (Fedd) and led a collective fight for recognition and compensation from the State. This June 16, the fight once again bore fruit: the Senate has just unanimously adopted a law recognizing this suffering, already voted by the Assembly. The text provides for financial and memorial reparations.
