Unearthing BUMIDOM: the state-organized migration of French Caribbeans to mainland France (1963-1982) as portrayed in recent audiovisual productions

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores four recent audiovisual productions that bring to light the state-organized mass migration of French West Indians from Martinique and Guadeloupe to mainland France through BUMIDOM (Bureau pour le développement des migrations dans les départements d’outre-mer) during the 1960s and 1970s. Vehemently criticized at the time—some observers even comparing it to the slave trade—BUMIDOM ended up being largely obfuscated from the collective national memory. Each in its own way, the four productions—two documentaries, Bumidom—Des Français venus d’Outre-mer (2011) and L’Avenir est ailleurs (2007), as well as the fictional TV mini series Le Rêve français (2018) and the feature film Le Gang des Antillais (2016)—unearth the humiliation experienced by the Martinicans and Guadeloupeans handled by BUMIDOM and how it enhanced their feeling of being perceived as not entirely French. After examining the productions, the article concludes by discussing them in relation to the concept of creoleness—as advocated by Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant in Éloge de la créolité (1989)—and the ‘desire for conviviality’: to what extent can an excavation of a painful and contentious past be helpful in that respect?