A Note on Approach

This book strives to center local voices while acknowledging its limitations. No single work can capture the full diversity of five distinct territories. Choices of whom to interview and which stories to tell inevitably exclude others. French language dominance in publishing means some voices speaking in Creole, Tahitian, or Kanak languages may be underrepresented despite efforts at inclusion.

We encourage readers to see this book as an opening rather than a conclusion—an invitation to seek out further perspectives, especially from writers, researchers, and media from the territories themselves. The resource sections following each chapter provide starting points for deeper exploration.

In the spirit of the values that guide this work—respect, curiosity, and recognition of complexity—we begin our journey through France's overseas territories, starting with the archipelago of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean Sea.

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Guadeloupe: The Butterfly Island's Dual Wings

"Guadeloupe is shaped like a butterfly, and like a butterfly, we are always in transformation," says Maryse Condé, the renowned Guadeloupean writer. The archipelago's distinctive shape—two main islands connected by a narrow channel—serves as a powerful metaphor for its dual nature: French and Caribbean, traditional and modern, torn between different visions of its future yet somehow maintaining a delicate balance.