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This study reveals the traces of trauma in adults born on the island of Réunion between 1957 and 1970, now aged between 45 and 60 years old and who, between 1963 and 1982, were exiled under the policy of Michel Debré which saw 2 150 children relocated from Réunion to France. This exile relied upon the cooperation of institutions, including the institution responsible for child protection at the time, the DDASS (Direction départementale des affaires sociales et sanitaires, Departmental Directorate of Health and Social Affairs). On the basis of research interviews, the article shows how these children of Réunion are survivors of child abuse via “cumulative trauma”– an abuse that continues to this day in so far as the French state still refuses to recognize their suffering, a suffering brought about by an operation that was political in nature. These children from Réunion present a certain number of mental disorders rooted in their brutal removal from their families and their experience of abandonment, often aggravated by mistreatment. Their identity, still suspended, is difficult or even impossible for them to assume, and these difficulties have repercussions for their descendants.