Echoes of Devil’s Island as Paris targets criminal masterminds with €400 million Amazonian fortress
France is preparing to build a €400 million high-security prison deep in the Amazon jungle of French Guiana, designed to isolate the most dangerous drug traffickers and radical Islamists from their criminal networks. The announcement, made by French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin during a visit to the South American territory, comes amid a surge in violent incidents linked to organized crime across the French prison system.
Slated to open as early as 2028, the prison will be located near Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, a remote region on the Surinamese border long known as the gateway to the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony. That site once held thousands of French convicts, including political prisoners, and became internationally famous through Henri Charrière’s autobiographical novel Papillon.
The new facility will accommodate up to 500 inmates and feature a separate high-security wing for the most dangerous offenders. It will operate under what Darmanin called an “extremely strict carceral regime” to neutralize top-level traffickers and terror suspects. The remote location, officials say, will make it nearly impossible for inmates to maintain outside communication — a longstanding challenge in France’s urban jails, where tens of thousands of illicit mobile phones circulate.
“This prison will target organized crime at all levels,” Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche. “It is a lasting means of removing the heads of the drug trafficking networks in mainland France, by placing them at the beginning of the drug trail — and out of reach.”
French Guiana, while geographically part of South America, is fully integrated into the French Republic. Its population votes in national elections and has access to France’s social safety net. But its location — bordering Brazil and Suriname — makes it a strategic crossroads for cocaine trafficking into Europe, often via “drug mules” who board commercial flights from Cayenne.
The choice of French Guiana signals a bold attempt to sever the logistical lifelines of criminal leaders by relocating them far from the French mainland, where networks of visitors, corrupt staff, and smuggled phones have allowed many to continue orchestrating crimes from behind bars.
The new prison is one of several planned under legislation passed earlier this year to intensify France’s fight against organized crime. The law provides broader powers to investigators, special protections for informants, and establishes a dedicated unit within the public prosecutor’s office to prosecute mafia-style operations.
Tensions have flared in recent months, with a spate of attacks on French prisons. Vehicles have been torched outside correctional facilities, and La Farlede prison in Toulon came under gunfire. Authorities blame criminal gangs responding violently to the new crackdown. Some attackers have styled themselves as defenders of prisoners’ rights, but Darmanin has labeled the incidents as terrorist in nature.
French authorities appear keen to avoid a repeat of past failures in containing high-profile inmates. The justice minister’s strategy leans heavily on geographic isolation to break the back of gang coordination. If successful, the French Guiana prison could serve as a model for dealing with organized crime figures whose influence often transcends prison walls.
The decision to return to a territory once synonymous with penal exile has not escaped attention. While the days of Devil’s Island are long gone, France may once again be betting on distance and solitude to do what metal bars alone cannot.
Sources: BBC, News agencies.
