Far from the rumors of reshuffle and the political turmoil caused by the immigration law, Elisabeth Borne is flying to Guyana on Sunday where she will spend New Year’s Eve with the armed forces who are fighting in particular against illegal gold panning. The Prime Minister will also stay there on January 1 and will start the year 2024 on a canoe to visit a river checkpoint and a Native American village.
This is the first time that she is going to this department of 300,000 inhabitants in the north-east of South America, bordering Suriname and Brazil which, like the Mayotte archipelago which she visited at the mid-December, 60% voted for Marine Le Pen in the last presidential election.
It is from Guyana that Elisabeth Borne will attend Emmanuel Macron’s wishes on December 31, while the head of state promised a “new course” for 2024, fueling speculation around a possible government reshuffle , or even a change of Prime Minister.
The head of government explained that she had “the feeling of duty accomplished” after the adoption of the immigration law voted by the deputies of the Republicans (LR) and those of the National Rally (RN), which provoked strong criticism on the left and fractured the majority, a quarter of the Renaissance deputies not having voted for the text.
“Precariousness”
Elisabeth Borne will meet on her arrival with the mayor of Cayenne Sandra Trochimara, then the president of the local authority Gabriel Serville, from the left, who would like to address migration and statutory issues, before flying to the town of Maripasoula in the Amazon rainforest (southwest).
Some 2,200 soldiers and around a thousand gendarmes are stationed in Guyana, engaged in particular in the fight against illegal fishing and illegal gold miners (gold prospectors) as well as in securing the Guyanese space center of Kourou (north).
The French army was bereaved twice in this territory this year during missions to combat illegal gold mining. The head of government, who will be accompanied by the Secretary of State for Youth and Universal National Service, Prisca Thevenot, will also visit a site often affected in Dorlin, where the forces of the 9th RIMa (infantry regiment) operate in particular. of navy).
It was there that on March 25, a GIGN major, Arnaud Blanc, 35, was killed while he participated with nine comrades in an operation against these clandestine gold prospectors. At the beginning of May, a canoeist member of the Armed Forces of Guyana (FAG) died in a canoe accident during a night operation on the Oyapock River (east).
Drug
On Monday, Elisabeth Borne will board a canoe to visit a river checkpoint. Before taking the plane back to Paris, she will discuss the fight against drug trafficking at Cayenne airport. Guyana is known for being a hub for supplying the metropolis with drugs, particularly cocaine.
A systematic control of travelers to the metropolis was introduced a year ago, in order to prevent “mules” – these passengers who carry narcotics in their luggage or by ingesting them – from transporting the drugs. This has made it possible to significantly reduce the seizures of narcotics upon arrival in France, but some are contesting in court an arbitrary drift.
This traffic partly explains the violence faced by the department, which holds the sad record for the highest number of homicides per capita in France, although it is well equipped with security forces.
“The particularities in terms of delinquency are the continental nature of its territory and the porosity of its borders, which are long and difficult to control. This encourages illegal gold panning, arms and drug trafficking,” explains criminologist Gaëlle Compper -Durand. Added to this geographical context is great poverty, which is profitable for criminal networks. In Guyana, 53% of the population lives below the poverty line according to INSEE.