French President François Hollande started a tour of the Pacific and Latin American on Sunday with a visit to the tiny islands of Wallis and Futuna, reports RFI.
He was to go on to French Polynesia, where compensation for 193 nuclear tests from 1966-1996 is still a contentious question, followed by Peru, Argentina and Uruguay.
Hollande's visit to Wallis will be the first by a French president since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing touched down there in 1979.
Futuna, a volcanic island only about 10 kilometres with a population of just over 3,000, has been even more neglected - this will be the first presidential visit ever.
Hollande was to visit the three traditional kingdoms and be welcomed by two kings, one of the thrones currently awaiting the designation of its occupant.
Traditional ceremonies have been organised - drinking the sacred drink kava, made from roots and branches of pepper plants, and KaïKaï - banquets of roast pigs laid out in front of the presidential palaces, the biggest being served to the guest of honour.
The islands' inhabitants are modest - they are desperately hoping that a French bank will open an ATM there and want dialysis equipment for their hospital.
With these visits, along with the trip to Polynesia, Hollande fulfils one of his 2012 campaign promises, to visit every all 11 of France's inhabited overseas territories.
A far more acrimonious debate awaits him in French Polynesia - the legacy of 30 years of French nuclear tests on the atolls of Mururoa and Fanguataufa that local people say have left a legacy of cancer and suffering.