Failure to launch
French Guiana, in South America, seeks more autonomy from France

Protests in the second-poorest of France’s overseas departments enter their fifth week

EuropeApr 22nd 2017 edition

OF ALL the voters fuming about neglect by out-of-touch politicians in distant Paris, the people of French Guiana have perhaps the strongest case. It is the second-poorest of France’s five overseas departments (DOMs). The unemployment rate, at over 20%, is more than double that of the mainland. Some 40% live in poverty. The murder rate is the highest in France.

The department is entering its fifth week of a general strike. Thousands of Guianese have taken to the streets to protest against high living costs, lack of jobs and crime. The demonstrations started on March 20th, when workers from Endel-Engie, an engineering firm, and EDF, the local energy utility, blocked roads outside the coastal city of Kourou to prevent the launch of a rocket from the Guiana Space Centre, which is based near the city.

The space centre is the main launching pad for the European Space Agency, owing to Guiana’s location close to the equator (to take advantage of the earth’s spin) and by an ocean (to reduce the chances that a botched launch will rain debris on people’s heads). It is also a symbol of the mainland’s apathy: a few miles down the road from Kourou “some people still have no running water or electricity,” says Antoine Louis-Alexandre, a protester.

Guiana’s troubles are not new. A former slave and penal colony, it was designated as an overseas department in 1946, giving it the same political status as mainland departments. But inequalities have persisted between the DOMs and mainland France.

Guiana is rich in natural resources, including gold, offshore oil and France’s largest forest. But its economy is moribund. It is dependent on imports from mainland France and Europe. In 2015 it exported €138.6m ($148.4m) worth of goods, compared with €1.2bn of imports. Even wood is imported, despite a lush rainforest in its back yard, which is a protected green zone that allows France to offset its carbon emissions. A high import tax on anything that arrives by sea means Guianese people pay higher prices. Food products are 45% more expensive than on the mainland.

The department’s infrastructure is appalling. Two main roads connect the principal towns along the coast but in the interior people travel by canoe. Its schools are in crisis, with dilapidated buildings and over-sized classes. One in two Guianese leave school with no diploma.

Moreover, its population has tripled since 1985. Partly this is to do with migration. Guiana is better off than its South American neighbours. Unguarded Amazonian borders led to a surge of newcomers from Brazil and Suriname in the 1980s and 1990s. The birth rate has also soared. Today, 43% of the population is under 20. Almost half of those under 25 have no jobs.

Its status as part of the European Union also makes it a convenient transit zone for traffickers moving cocaine from South America into Europe. The number of Guianese caught with drugs in Cayenne’s airport doubled between 2014 and 2016, to 371. Crime rates are correspondingly high.

The government in Paris has taken note, offering €1bn in emergency funds to pay for policing and improvements to hospitals and schools. Protest leaders demanded a further €2.1bn. They also want immunity for those involved in road blockades. But most of all they want change: “The DOMs need greater autonomy and a system that is adapted to local conditions,” says Gabriel Serville, one of Guiana’s deputies. Otherwise, protesters are clear: standing in front of a crowd in Cayenne and pointing at the French flag this month, one declared, “If they can’t treat us like French citizens, like they treat French citizens elsewhere, we’ll tear it down.”

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Failure to launch"

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