France has unveiled plans for a €400 million high-security prison in French Guiana. The site, near the historic Devil’s Island penal colony, will house drug traffickers and radicalised inmates. Critics warn the move mirrors colonial-era exile tactics.
A prison in the jungle. A memory reawakened.
History shows that prisons built in silence echo the loudest in hindsight.
Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, a small town in the Amazon rainforest of French Guiana, will host the new prison. The overseas territory, located on the northeastern coast of South America, is still officially part of France.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced the project, which will cost €400 million and is set to open by 2028.
According to Darmanin, the prison is meant to “incapacitate the most dangerous drug traffickers and radicalised individuals” by cutting off their links to outside networks. He called it “the most secure detention facility in France” and said it would also target drug routes from Brazil and Suriname.
But the location is far from neutral.
Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni once served as the main entry point to Devil’s Island, part of France’s notorious colonial prison system. Between 1852 and 1953, more than 70,000 people were sent into exile here, including Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was falsely accused of treason.
The new prison will be built just a few kilometres from those same shores.
Old rusted chains will be replaced by reinforced concrete. But the purpose feels familiar: remove the threat, isolate the person, and silence the voice.
Officials say the remote jungle location offers what urban prisons cannot—complete separation.
The facility will include a special wing for high-risk inmates and hold up to 500 prisoners under strict supervision, with limited outside contact.
But legal experts and rights groups are sounding the alarm.
“France is using distance to create a sense of control,” said Dr. Françoise Vergès, political scientist and author of A Decolonial Feminism. “It’s an old method—send the unwanted far away, and pretend the problem is solved.”
The French Human Rights League (LDH) criticised the lack of public input.
“French Guiana is not a dumping ground for Paris’s problems,” it said, calling the project a case of “strategic outsourcing” of France’s internal failures.
Local officials agree.
Hélène Sirder, a regional councilor, told Le Monde the prison was “decided in Paris and dropped on us like a verdict.” She said the region needs investment in hospitals and schools, not a national prison.
Another major concern is who will be sent there.
Many inmates are expected to be labelled Islamic extremists. But religious scholars have long rejected any link between Islam and terrorism.
In 2014, 126 Muslim clerics from around the world issued an open letter condemning ISIS, calling its actions “forbidden” and a “perversion of the Quran.”
A Pew Research study in 2017 found that 82% of Muslims in France were concerned about extremism and clearly opposed violence in the name of religion.
As Dr. Haoues Seniguer from Sciences Po Lyon explains:
“These men may use the name of Islam, but Islam rejects them. If France continues to confuse the two, it sends the wrong message.”
This project is not just about security. It is about space. Power. And memory.
French Guiana is over 7,000 kilometres from Paris, but still part of the French Republic.
To many, this decision proves that problems from the mainland are being pushed to the margins, without local voices, without consent.
Darmanin says it is about law and order. Critics say it is about control. A return to old tactics. A punishment that removes not just liberty, but visibility. Justice should be open. Not hidden and not buried.
The jungle will hold the prison. But it will also hold its memory. And history warns us, places built to silence often speak the loudest in the end.
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