For decades the international spotlight has fallen on Madagascar only when its teeming forests yielded a new species of lemur or an improbable palm tree, or esle when its cities buzzed with rumours of an impending military coup.

Today, however, the Indian Ocean island of 19m people that is bigger than France, by which it was briefly annexed in the 19th century, is a serious economic proposition. It has attracted the attention of the world’s biggest oil companies and miners as well as Asian “tigers” keen to use its fertile soils to feed their own populations.