So that you don’t have to, I’ve conducted a reconnaissance of French Guiana where the French justice minister is to build a strict regime, maximum-security prison to warehouse France’s most dangerous criminals.
I’ve been there a couple of times as a guest of the French space agency, which occasionally conducts launches of the Ariane rocket from Kourou. You fly in from Paris over virgin rainforest and can see the enormous space base on the descent. It’s the hand of man on the face of God.
In the jungle, the butterflies are poisonous, the snakes venomous and the Caiman crocodiles hungry
French Guiana has a veneer of French civilisation. You can buy decent baguettes. There’s a Carrefour supermarket. But it’s essentially an anachronism of French colonialism.
Europeans run the spaceport and local government. There are industrious Indochinese, descendants of the families who were exiled there after the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, who run much else. And there are indigenous Amerindians, who have the good fortune to benefit from the generous French welfare system, but who do not otherwise play a prominent part in the economy.
I had lunch at the Chez Tintin restaurant in Sinnamary and the food was excellent, brochettes of shrimp hauled in from the ocean, and the native Cayenne peppers. The menu at the new supermax is unlikely to be so appetising.
It’s without doubt an excellent place for a prison. In the jungle, the butterflies are poisonous, the snakes venomous and the Caiman crocodiles hungry. There are jaguars and panthers. So no shortage of apex predators. Also, take care not to disturb the heavily armed Brazilian clandestines, who illegally mine for gold and pollute the waters with mercury.
Any escaping prisoner attempting to swim across the Maroni river to Suriname should be aware of piranas. They should also be mindful of the French ninth marine infantry division, which is on constant alert against incursions from the north.
French Guiana has an ignoble penitential history. There are three islands surrounded by shark-infested waters about 13 km off the coast. The notorious Île du Diable was part of the notorious French penal colony, Le Bagne, known for its brutal conditions and housing political prisoners, including Alfred Dreyfus. It was also the temporary lodging of Henri Charrière, nicknamed ‘Papillon’ who was convicted in 1931 for the murder of a pimp in Paris.
Sentenced to life, he was sent to Saint-Laurent du Maroni’s Camp de la Transportation, then transferred to the island, from which he remarkably escaped, eventually making his way to Venezuela. His book famously became a movie starring Steve McQueen as Charrière but it is an unreliable guide since it was filmed in Jamaica and Spain.
The islands are now a tourist attraction although I couldn’t go there as they evacuate them during rocket launches. A highlight of such visits is said to be the remains of the execution blocks where the most dangerous criminals were guillotined.
The penal complex also included mainland facilities, like Saint-Laurent du Maroni, which served as a primary prison and processing centre for convicts before they were sent to the islands or labour camps. This is about 200km away from Devil’s Island, and the site where France is to build the new prison. It will accommodate 500 prisoners with a high-security wing for about 60 drug traffickers, and another for Islamist terrorists.
I’d give French Guiana a five-star rating for adventure tourism but because I believe firmly that one should avoid lowering one’s standard of living on holiday, I would recommend the Novotel Cayenne.
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