Special envoy to Guyana
“You will end up in
prison ,
”
mothers used to say to their recalcitrant children.
And they believed them.
Between 1852 and 1953, more than 70,000 thieves, assassins, pimps, spies, anarchists, or petty repeat offenders were sent to Guyana, land of great punishment.
Seventy years later, this department that the metropolis watches from afar, sometimes with dread, bears the scars of this incredible past, which partly shaped it.
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IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ALBERT LONDON (9/18) The hell of the prison For the image
From Cayenne to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, passing through the forest and the three Iles du Salut (Royale, Saint-Joseph and the Devil), traces of the prison are still visible.
They are more or less in ruins, and some are being restored.
They form an archipelago of repression, giving rise to images of tattooed men breaking stones, and supervisors in immaculate colonial clothes.
An island was even reserved for convicts with leprosy, who wasted away little by little, for lack of care.
Henry…
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