48

Whether it is about the chlordecone pollution in Martinique and Guadeloupe, the continuing use of banned pesticides in Polynesia or the many suicides linked to paraquat in Guyana, pesticides in the French overseas territories have become a significant socio-environmental issue. However, to date, few studies have looked at these issues in the many overseas territories. Besides Martinique and Guadeloupe, where the chlordecone scandal has generated significant data production, there is ultimately very little information on the use of pesticides in the other overseas territories. In this paper we therefore propose to carry out a first inventory around the question and offer a review of the existing literature. We point to both the lack of existing knowledge on the subject and the various persistent inequalities according to the territories studied (DROM/COM, New Caledonia). The work that we present here is conceived as a first step of an ongoing research whose ambition is, eventually, to offer a more comprehensive inventory.