POLYNESIA

“'I have a friend who puts a big stone on top of a small stone every evening; if the big stone falls off, it means tomorrow will be a bad day for him… There’s nothing to do here.' Chavely is proud of her pretty little pebble from the island of Tubuai. (…) The arrival of thousands of young Popa’as with the CEP (Centre d’Expérimentation du Pacifique: 'the bomb') ended up upsetting the islanders’ social equilibrium. More remote islands have been less affected.

Tourism, television, and a succession of consumer products have stepped in to compensate. The girls on the islands get bored. They dream of leaving for Tahiti. The exodus has triggered, in Papeete in particular, a new wave of poverty and a deep identity crisis among males, with one symptom being violence towards women."

Extract from Zoé Zoé, Femmes du mondes, 2007, Éditions Gallimard