Qualla: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown early 1900s, Public domain. Somerset Maugham visited in 1936 and wrote that Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni was a pretty little place, its streets wide and tree-lined, the houses nestled in gardens of bougainvillea and hibiscus. And then, at the end of a paragraph, he delivered the punchline: the streets are neat because there is no shortage of convicts to sweep them. This was the town whose reason for existing was the prison camp at its center.

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Image: Unknown early 1900s | Public domain

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: The Camp de la Transportation

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don-vip, CC BY-SA 4.0. Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni was founded in 1858 by Auguste Baudin for a single purpose: to receive prisoners shipped from France. The Camp de la Transportation was the arrival point, the first stop for convicts whose sentence of transportation often meant a life term - even those who...

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Image: Don-vip | CC BY-SA 4.0

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: The Border Town

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don-vip, CC BY-SA 4.0. Across the Maroni River lies Albina, Suriname. A ferry runs between them, and pirogues carry passengers back and forth for a few euros. The river forms the border - there is no bridge - and the town's location was deliberate: penal authorities chose a site without an Atlantic coa...

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Image: Don-vip | CC BY-SA 4.0

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: Henri Charriere's Island

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ted Hill, CC BY-SA 3.0. Out in the Maroni River sits a small island where the prison once isolated its leprosy patients. The convict Henri Charriere - known to the world as Papillon - wrote about hiding there during one of his escapes. His memoir, whether you believe every word of it or not, made the Fr...

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Image: Ted Hill | CC BY-SA 3.0

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: Beyond the Bars

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rueparadis, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today the town is the jumping-off point for ecotourism into the Amazonian rainforest. Operators run trips 70 kilometers upriver to the Voltaire Falls, and visitors can spend nights in jungle huts with hammocks strung between trees. Sugarcane fields nearby produce La Belle Cabress...

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Image: Rueparadis | CC BY-SA 4.0

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: The New Prison

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JARIKU les Ateliers © alias Sébastien Charles Amar Hamideche, CC BY-SA 4.0. History has a way of coming back around. In 2025, France announced it would open a new high-security prison at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, choosing this town again, for the same geography that made it useful in 1858. Also in June 2025, the French state began transferring 91 hectares...

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