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France to build €400m prison in French Guiana for most dangerous criminals
20 May 2025
France is to build a €400 million high-security prison in French Guiana, designed to hold some of the country’s most dangerous criminals.
French justice secretary Gérald Darmanin (Image: belgium24.eu - CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
France’s justice secretary Gérald Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche that the prison would house drug traffickers and radical Islamists deep in the Amazon jungle, in the northwestern region of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni.
The prison could open as early as 2028 and will hold up to 500 people.
It will feature a separate wing to house the most dangerous criminals.
The announcement of its construction follows a series of violent incidents in French prisons, linked to criminal gangs.
Darmanin said that French Guiana’s distance from the French mainland, on the north-east coast of South America, meant that organised criminals held their would no longer have access to their networks.
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