The June elections of the European Parliament have even reached the southernmost tip of the European Union. La Réunion may be part of France,but its circumstances are totally different. Life on the paradise island in the Indian Ocean hardly resembles daily life in the EU,even though many of the island's laws originate in Brussels. The people are poor,but the land is rich in natural beauty. The idyllic existence amid beaches,volcanoes and rainforests is disturbed only once in a while by the distant politics of the EU.