34

France has five overseas departments, all located thousands of kilometers from metropolitan France: Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Reunion Island and, finally, Mayotte, a department since 2011. The combination of the historical geography of their populations and their contemporary demographic trends, in the context of territories of widely varying size, highlights significant differences in settlement patterns. As for population dynamics, should we think that they are converging? To answer this question, it is necessary to analyze the natural movement and the migratory movement. A typology can be derived from this, making it possible to highlight a high probability of very dissimilar future developments.