France to Export Drug Traffickers, Extremists to Guiana

France said it will build a high-security prison in its overseas territory of French Guiana in South America to hold drug traffickers and radical Islamists currently serving sentences in France, the BBC reported. 

The prison is to be built in the Amazon rainforest, in the northwestern region of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, near the border with Suriname. French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin visited the area over the weekend, according to France 24.  

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Darmanin said that the project, which is costing over $450 million and should open by 2029, will specifically target organized crime “at all levels” of the drug supply chain. He added that the prison would be run with a “strict” regime to “incapacitate the most dangerous drug traffickers.” 

French officials say the goal of the prison is to stop individuals early on in the drug trade, as well as serve as a definitive tool for dismantling the leadership of the drug trafficking organizations in mainland France. 

At least 20 percent of the cocaine in the French mainland comes from Guiana. French officials hope the new prison, with its deep isolation, will make it more difficult for drug lords to connect with their criminal networks because it will allow for more effective signal jamming. 

The prison will be able to hold up to 500 prisoners and feature an ultra-secure section for 60 dangerous inmates. It will also include an area for Islamists and prisoners considered dangerous to state security. 

Some in Guiana criticized the project, saying that France is shipping them criminals too dangerous to remain in France, as if French Guiana were “France’s ‘rubbish’ bin.” Local lawmakers, meanwhile, were taken aback by the proposal, saying they were not informed in advance.  

However, Darmanin countered that the new prison will hold local offenders, too, as there are an “enormous number” of murderers and drug traffickers in French Guiana. 

The new prison will be France’s third high-security prison – the other two are located in mainland France – and follows a series of recent attacks linked to criminal gangs who attacked prisons and staff across France.