French Guiana

French Guiana is France's last remaining colony in the Americas—a South American territory where the European Space Agency launches satellites, the French Foreign Legion patrols borders, and the descendants of escaped slaves maintain communities deep in the rainforest. It houses both Europe's spaceport and the remnants of history's most notorious penal colony.

Indigenous peoples inhabited the region for millennia before French colonization began in the 17th century. Early settlement failed catastrophically: in 1763, around 12,000 French colonists arrived at Kourou seeking El Dorado, and 6,000 died within a year from tropical diseases. The colony earned its nickname "L'Enfer Vert"—the Green Hell. By the mid-18th century, French Guiana held about 500 Europeans and ten times as many enslaved Africans working plantations.

When slavery was abolished in 1848, France repurposed the colony as a dumping ground for undesirables. The penal system that operated from 1852 to 1953 transported 80,000 prisoners—political dissidents, hardened criminals, petty offenders—to the Îles du Salut and mainland camps. Conditions were deliberately lethal: malaria, cholera, yellow fever, and brutal labor killed up to 90% of inmates. Only about 2,000 ever returned to France. The most famous prisoner was Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer falsely convicted of treason, who arrived on Devil's Island in 1895. The Dreyfus Affair exposed the anti-Semitic rot in French institutions and divided the nation for decades.

When Algeria gained independence in 1962, France lost its rocket launch site at Hammaguir. In 1964, the area around Kourou—where the penal colony had stood—was selected for a new space center. The location is nearly ideal: just five degrees north of the equator, where Earth's rotational velocity provides 24% more launch power than Cape Canaveral. The Guiana Space Centre opened in 1968, becoming Europe's primary gateway to orbit. Ariane rockets, Soyuz missions, and now private launches operate from the former prison site.

Today, French Guiana exists in contradictions. It is officially a French overseas department—not a colony but an integral part of France, with representation in the National Assembly and access to EU citizenship. Yet it struggles with extreme poverty, unemployment exceeding 20%, and infrastructure deficits that sparked major protests in 2017. The economy depends on the space center (contributing roughly 15% of GDP), French government transfers, and illegal gold mining that devastates protected rainforest. Some 2,000 soldiers, including Foreign Legionnaires, patrol borders against illegal immigration from Brazil and Suriname.

Maroon communities—descendants of enslaved people who escaped plantations and built autonomous societies in the interior—maintain distinct cultures and languages. Indigenous Wayampi, Teko, and other peoples retain territory in the interior, though their rights remain contested. The rainforest covers 98% of the territory, hosting biodiversity rivaling the Amazon.

Through 2026, French Guiana embodies the persistence of colonial structures within republican France. Locals are French citizens who vote in French elections, yet governance decisions are made in Paris, and economic development remains extractive—whether launching European satellites or mining gold illegally in protected forests. The Green Hell has become Europe's space gateway, but the colonial logic that sent prisoners to die in the jungle hasn't entirely departed.