From Château d’If to French Guiana: France’s New Prison Frontier

France is set to adopt a prison system that will be particularly harsh on drug kingpins. In simple terms, the country is embracing the same strict measures that Alex Dalli once implemented in our prisons to eradicate drugs. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, is behind this proposal.

Now, will our self-declared defenders of the rule of law organise a protest in front of the French Embassy to denounce France for operating inhumane prisons? By their very nature, high-security prisons will be run similarly to how Alex Dalli managed certain sections of our prison system, if not more stringently.

This initiative is set apart because the prison in question will not even be located on French soil. Much like in Alexandre Dumas’s novels, it will be established outside mainland France, in this case, in French Guiana. Furthermore, the facility is also intended to house Islamic radicals.

France is to build a high-security prison in the South American jungle for its most “dangerous” criminals.

Gerald Darmanin, the country’s hardline justice minister, said the facility will open in 2028 in Saint-Laurent du Maroni in French Guiana, an overseas territory situated north of Brazil.

“I have decided to establish France’s third high-security prison in Guiana,” Mr Darmanin told the Journal du Dimanche.

“Sixty places, an extremely strict prison regime and one goal – to remove the most dangerous profiles involved in drug trafficking,” he said during a trip to Guiana.

“My strategy is simple – hit organised crime at all levels – here in Guiana, at the start of the drug trafficking route and in mainland France, by neutralising the network leaders, and all the way to consumers.

“This prison will be a safeguard in the war against narco-trafficking,” he added.

Crucially, the prison’s location “will serve to permanently isolate the heads of drug trafficking networks” since “they will no longer be able to contact their criminal networks”.

Justice ministry officials also said that 15 places at the prison would be reserved for convicted Islamist radicals.

Saint-Laurent du Maroni is a strategic hub for so-called drug mules, mainly from Brazil, who attempt to board flights to Paris carrying cocaine originating in neighbouring Suriname.

Mr Darmanin had already said in January he wanted to isolate “the 100 biggest drug traffickers” in a dedicated facility designed to stop them from pursuing their illegal business from their prison cells.

Guiana is the most crime-ridden French department relative to the size of its population, with a record 20.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, nearly 14 times the national average.

Saint-Laurent was the location of France’s notorious Transportation Camp – a brutal penal colony that operated from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.

The structure remains largely intact.