France will construct a high-security prison in the Amazon rainforest, part of a €400 million (A$696.16 million) initiative aimed at curbing serious drug offences and terrorism, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin confirmed during a visit to French Guiana on Sunday.
The planned facility, to be built in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, will have 500 beds and include capacity for 60 high-level drug offenders and 15 terrorists.
A courthouse will also be developed on the same site, with completion targeted for 2028.
The location is not far from the infamous Devil’s Island penal colony, which operated until the 1950s and became widely known through the book and film Papillon. The colony had a notorious reputation for harsh conditions and low survival rates.
Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) that the prison’s mission is “to put the most dangerous drug traffickers out of action”, noting that the project will not only target organised narcotics operations in the region but also help alleviate prison overcrowding.
The minister has made combating drug trafficking a central policy goal. By this summer, his plan aims to isolate France’s top 100 drug traffickers from their networks.
As part of this strategy, inmates will be transferred to two high-security prisons on the French mainland: Vendin-le-Vieil in Pas-de-Calais and Condé-sur-Sarthe in Orne.
Speaking to Le Monde in January, Darmanin outlined his concerns: "What is unbearable is that prisons are no longer obstacles for most narco-traffickers to continue their trafficking, or to assassinate or to threaten magistrates, prison officers, journalists or lawyers," he said.
