The rediscovery of chlordecone in surface waters in the French West Indies sparked a significant mobilization, first locally and then at the national level. A pesticide used to control the banana weevil until 1993, it remains virtually indefinitely in the soil, leaching into water bodies only gradually. While environmental pollution does not typically spark controversy as it is discovered, the question of the health consequences of such pollution remains at the center of concerns for both the public and government authorities. Public health measures were first implemented for water, then for soil, and finally for food through the adoption of several maximum residue limits over a short period. The French Antilles thus constitute a small-scale laboratory in a world that is permanently polluted, where, having acknowledged the existence of irreversible pollution, the task now is not only to better understand and contain it but also to learn to live with it. (R.A)