France revives Devil's Island legacy with new supermax prison to deport Islamists to French Guiana

France's plan to build a high-security prison in its South American territory of French Guiana, specifically to house drug traffickers and individuals convicted of terrorism-related offences, has triggered a wave of condemnation from local officials and residents, who accuse Paris of reviving colonial-era practices by using the territory as a penal dumping ground.

The 500-capacity facility, first announced in 2017 and now scheduled for completion by 2028, will include a 60-inmate supermax wing designed to isolate key figures in drug trafficking networks and suspected Islamist militants.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed the project over the weekend during a visit to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, a remote town near the Surinamese border that once served as a key outpost in France's penal colony system, home to the infamous Devil's Island and the setting of the novel Papillon.

Darmanin described the prison as France's third "high-security" facility, strategically placed to keep high-level offenders far from their criminal networks.

"My strategy is simple," he told reporters. "Hit organised crime at all levels, from source to consumer."

He said 15 of the supermax wing's cells would be allocated for radicalised Islamist inmates. The €400 million ($451 million) complex will include a courtroom, and staffing priority will go to people from French Guiana and France's Caribbean territories.

But the announcement has provoked backlash across the territory, with officials denouncing what they describe as a unilateral decision made without local consultation.

Jean-Paul Fereira, acting president of the Guianese Territorial Collectivity, expressed "astonishment and indignation" over the project, saying local lawmakers were blindsided by the scope of the plan.

"We discovered, along with the entire population of Guiana, the details through a national newspaper," he said in a statement Sunday.

According to Fereira, the 2017 agreement with Paris was for a standard correctional facility to alleviate overcrowding, not a supermax prison intended to house dangerous criminals from mainland France.

"This project undermines our dignity," he said.

He also warned that French Guiana should not be used to warehouse France’s most problematic inmates.

Jean-Victor Castor, a member of France's National Assembly representing French Guiana, also accused the government of exploiting the territory's peripheral status.

"It's an insult to our history, a political provocation, and a colonial regression," Castor wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal calling for the immediate withdrawal of the project.