Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0176/01767.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 11KB | 178 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01767}
$Pretitle{354C}
$Title{Indian Ocean Countries
Appendix B.   Reunion (La Reunion)}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Melinda W. Cooke}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{french
population
reunion
france
island
island's
percent
government
department
parties}
$Date{1983}
$Log{}
Country:     Indian Ocean Countries
Book:        Indian Ocean Countries, An Area Study: Strategic Considerations
Author:      Melinda W. Cooke
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1983

Appendix B.   Reunion (La Reunion)

     In mid-1982 Reunion was an Overseas Department of France, a status that
it obtained in 1946 and that the populace ratified along with the Constitution
of the French Fifth Republic in 1958. The island was politically and
administratively an integral part of the republic, although there existed a
significant and vocal political opposition that advocated further autonomy.

     Like the other Mascarene Islands, Reunion was formed by volcanic
mountains, these towering about 3,000 meters above the sea and covering
two-thirds of the terrain. The windward, northeastern side of the island has a
wet, tropical climate and rich alluvial soils. The leeward side is much drier
and temperate, having a varied, steppe-like terrain. The highlands are cooler
yet, less fertile, and include several cirques, steep-walled basins burrowed
into the mountains. The least fertile area is around the still-active volcano,
Piton de la Fournaise in the southeast. Most of the native hardwood forests
have been destroyed, but remnants of these and secondary growth cover the
hilly areas. About a third of the territory is cultivated, chiefly with
sugarcane and food crops; except on the northeastern side, irrigation is
necessary. The coastline is steep, without a continental shelf or natural
harbors, the port at Pointes des Galets is man-made. The island is located in
the cyclone belt, and storms occur irregularly between January and March.

     The first people to settle the island were the French, who arrived in
1642 and thereafter imported slave laborers from East Africa to establish
farms for food crops, coffee, and spices. France abolished slavery in 1848,
but indentured laborers from India, Indochina, and East Africa continued to
arrive in the colony throughout the nineteenth century to work on the
increasingly important sugarcane plantations. A small elite of white
plantation owners and French colonial administrators came to dominate the poor
whites and persons of mixed descent who made up the majority of the
population. French, African, Malagasy, Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani ethnic
and cultural elements combined to create a Creole population. The island's
Creole traditions have impeded the process of integration with Metropolitan
France.

     Population pressure-an estimated 520,000 persons crowded onto only 2,511
square kilometers of territory in 1982-exacerbated other social and economic
problems. Although the rate of population growth was declining, aided by the
net emigration to Metropolitan France of about 5,000 Reunionese each year,
more than 40 percent of the population were less than twenty-four years of
age. Unemployment was extensive among the youthful population.

     The society seemed to be stratified more on economic lines than in terms
of ethnic affiliation. Sometimes these two criteria intertwined, however, as
in the case of the small minority of whites who owned 40 percent of the
acreage planted in sugarcane or who occupied the highest levels of the civil
service and government. A class of impoverished white subsistence farmers
lived in the highlands and was probably the poorest segment of society. These
whites increasingly intermarried with the nonwhite population, and the common
language of communication on the island was Creole; French, however, was the
official language. Some 94 percent of the population were Roman Catholic.
Educating the Creole population in the French language and culture was one of
the most difficult tasks facing the government. School enrollments have risen
dramatically since the mid-1970s, and the literacy rate among the youth was 80
percent-twice the rate for the population as a whole. About 5,000 students
dropped out of school each year, however, and half the students entered the
secondary level without passing the examination for reading and writing
French.

     Public spending from France had improved the health, housing,
electricity, and communications facilities available to low-income families,
especially since 1976 during the presidency of Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Some
three-fourths of the population were reported to receive welfare payments in
1979, and direct subsidies averaged 25 percent more per person than in France
proper. Nonetheless many children suffered from malnutrition, most of the
population carried parasites, and half of the nonurban population was without
electricity. A devastating cyclone in 1980 destroyed many inferior housing
units.

     The island's economy was underdeveloped compared with the other French
departments. The minimum wage for agricultural laborers, who made up the
majority of the work force, was 20 to 30 percent lower than elsewhere in the
French Republic and just over half the minimum wage for nonagricultural
Reunionese workers. Unemployment was a major problem. About 30,000 persons
were officially classified as unemployed in 1981, but the political opposition
put the number as high as 84,000 persons. The heart of the economy was
sugarcane; the production of raw sugar averaged about 260,000 tons per year in
the 1978-81 period-higher than in the early 1970s but lower than planned. The
government program to modernize the industry has evidently failed to increase
the chronically low yields per hectare, particularly on the small-scale farms
of some 18,000 independent farmers. Other agriculture, which included the
cultivation of geraniums, vanilla, tobacco, fruits, and food crops, along with
some livestock raising, has grown slowly. The economy still imported most of
its food needs. Fishing was poorly developed, and foreign trawlers dominated
fishing in the island's Exclusive Economic Zone (see Glossary).
Nonagricultural industries employed only about 20,000 persons in 1979, half in
construction and most of the remainder in factories that processed sugarcane
or other agricultural products.

     The government received Fr48 million (for value of the French franc-see
Glossary) from the Overseas Department Investment Fund in 1981 to supplement
the departmental budget of Fr350 million and other funds disbursed through the
offices of various national ministries. It was estimated in 1978 that the
wages of civil servants in charge of the government programs on the island
were equivalent to a quarter of the island's gross national product (see
Glossary). Reunion's merchandise exports totaled about US$128 million in 1980,
compared with US$816 million of imports; some 66 percent of all trade was with
France, and 75 percent was with the European Economic Community as a whole.

     Reunionese enjoyed all the rights and privileges granted to other
citizens of the French Republic. The island elected three deputies to the
French National Assembly and two to the Senate. The department itself was
administered by an appointed prefect together with an elected general council
of thirty-six members. At the lowest level of government, each of the
island's twenty-four communes elected a municipal council and mayor. In 1974
France created an indirectly elected regional council for Reunion to
coordinate economic and social development policies. Under a decentralization
bill passed by the government of French President Francois Mitterand in 1981,
both the general council and the regional councils were to assume greater
responsibility for the island's fiscal policies.

     Political parties, affiliated with but autonomous from parties in
Metropolitan France, were perceived by most Reunionese to lie on a left-right
continuum roughly equi