France’s most worrisome coronavirus hot spot is on the South American continent, in its former colony of French Guiana. Accessibility statement Skip to main content. Democracy Dies in Darkness.

For close to a century, between 1852 and 1938, France used its South American enclave as a penal colony, first under Napoleon III and then under the Third Republic.

Dense equatorial forests, colonial towns and a major space centre are among the faces of French Guiana, a region of France on the north-east coast of South America.

Few French settlers lived in the colonies, except for the Békés, white landowners of the Antilles and Réunion, who dominated the far more numerous African slaves who worked the sugar plantations. The ...

French Guiana, in South America, seeks more autonomy from France ... Guiana’s troubles are not new. A former slave and penal colony, it was designated as an overseas department in 1946, ...

France is planning to build a brand new high-security prison in the Amazon rainforest, near the site of the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony that inspired the 1973 movie “Papillon ...

The facility will open in 2028 in Saint Laurent du Maroni in French Guiana. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.