On Saturday, a 35-year-old non-commissioned officer died in Guyana, killed during an operation against illegal gold panning. Emmanuel Macron will go this Friday to the GIGN headquarters in Versailles-Satory in the Yvelines to pay tribute to him.
Emmanuel Macron will go this Friday to the GIGN headquarters in Versailles-Satory in the Yvelines to pay tribute to Arnaud Blanc, gendarme of the elite unit shot dead in Guyana during an operation against illegal gold panning overnight. from Friday to Saturday last.
The soldier, 35 years old and father of two children, was in operation on the gold panning site of Dorlin, in the center of this overseas territory, where armed forces and gendarmes carry out regular missions against this scourge, a source of pollution and violence in this overseas territory.
Regular major dismantling operations
The army and the gendarmerie regularly carry out major operations to dismantle illegal gold panning sites as part of the Harpie mission, launched in 2008 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then head of state. From the end of October to the beginning of December 2022, up to 500 soldiers had been mobilized for seven weeks in order to “neutralize” the main clandestine gold mining sites. Fifty tonnes of equipment and various foodstuffs, 30,000 liters of fuel, 12 km of site pipes, six crushers, 90 generators, 37 quads, 15 canoes and their engines had been seized, representing a financial loss of approximately 4 million euros. euros, according to the prefecture, for garimpeiros (a term designating illegal Brazilian gold miners in Guyana).