Darmanin announces the creation of a high-security prison for drug traffickers and radicals in Guyana

"I have decided to establish France's third maximum-security prison in French Guiana. Sixty places, an extremely strict prison regime, and one objective: to put the most dangerous drug traffickers out of action," Gérald Darmanin told the JDD during a trip to French Guiana. "Fifteen places" will also be "dedicated to Islamists/radicalized individuals," his office confirmed.

"My strategy is simple: strike organized crime at every level. Here, at the beginning of the drug trade. In mainland France, by neutralizing the heads of the network. And all the way to the users. This prison will be a key in the war against drug trafficking," the minister added.

Gérald Darmanin, who has made the fight against drug trafficking his priority, hopes that this prison will "serve to permanently distance the heads of the drug trafficking network" since "they will no longer be able to have any contact with their criminal networks." According to the JDD, the building permit for this building, located on a plot of land covering several dozen hectares in the Amazon jungle and costing 400 million euros, is about to be signed by the prefect.

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is a strategic crossroads for "mules," particularly from Brazil, who attempt to board a plane to Orly Airport every day, carrying cocaine from neighboring Suriname, on the other side of the river, in their luggage or in their stomachs. It is also the former port of entry to the penal colony where convicts from mainland France disembarked from 1850 to 1938.

In January, the Minister of Justice had already announced his intention to isolate the "hundred biggest drug traffickers" by the summer in "a high-security prison," previously emptied of its inmates, in order to prevent them from continuing their criminal activity from their cells.