{"id":111592,"date":"2025-05-18T11:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T11:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/111592\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T11:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T11:43:10","slug":"france-to-build-a-high-security-prison-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-in-south-american-jungle-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/111592\/","title":{"rendered":"France to build a high-security prison in the middle of nowhere in South American jungle. Here&#8217;s why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>France will construct a new high-security prison in the jungles of South America, aimed at isolating the country\u2019s most dangerous criminals, including drug lords and Islamist radicals, Justice Minister G\u00e9rald Darmanin announced in an interview published Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The facility is set to open in 2028 in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, located in French Guiana, a French overseas territory on the northern coast of South America bordering Brazil and Suriname.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have decided to establish France\u2019s third high-security prison in Guiana,\u201d Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD). \u201cIt will house 60 inmates under an extremely strict prison regime, with one goal: to remove the most dangerous profiles involved in drug trafficking.\u201d<br \/>Justice ministry officials confirmed that 15 of the 60 places will be reserved for individuals convicted of Islamist extremism.<\/p>\n<p>Darmanin, who built his reputation as a tough-on-crime politician during his tenure as interior minister, said the decision is part of a broader effort to strike at all levels of organized crime.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ET logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/118783427.cms.png\" width=\"90%\"\/>Live Events<br \/>\u201cMy strategy is simple\u2014hit organised crime at every level,\u201d he said. \u201cHere in Guiana, where drug trafficking begins; in mainland France, by neutralising network leaders; and all the way to the end users.\u201dHe described the new facility as a \u201csafeguard in the war against narcotrafficking.\u201dA key feature of the prison, Darmanin emphasized, is its remote location, which is intended to \u201cpermanently isolate the heads of drug trafficking networks\u201d and cut off their ability to communicate with criminal associates.<\/p>\n<p>Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is a known hotspot for so-called &#8220;drug mules&#8221;, many of whom travel from Brazil and attempt to board flights to Paris with cocaine hidden in luggage or ingested. Much of the drug flow originates in neighbouring Suriname.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Darmanin revealed his plan to isolate France\u2019s top 100 drug traffickers in a dedicated high-security facility to prevent them from continuing their illegal operations from behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>French Guiana has the highest crime rate of any French department relative to its population. In 2023, the region recorded 20.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants\u2014nearly 14 times the national average.<\/p>\n<p>Saint-Laurent was once home to France\u2019s infamous Transportation Camp, a penal colony that operated from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The remains of that brutal institution still stand today\u2014a historical echo to the future role the town is about to play in France\u2019s modern criminal justice system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France will construct a new high-security prison in the jungles of South America, aimed at isolating the country\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[50626,2000,299,36,50628,50625,50627,50629],"class_list":{"0":"post-111592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-drug-trafficking-prison","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-france-prison","13":"tag-french-supermax-prison","14":"tag-saint-laurent-du-maroni","15":"tag-south-american-jungle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114528662675597617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}