FRENCH GUIANA Population 300,000 Country Profile


A tiny remaining bastion of France’s former colonial empire, French Guiana is an overseas region and department of France meaning that it is fully integrated in the French Republic and is part of the European Union as well. With a surface area equivalent to Portugal, around 96 per cent is covered by the Amazon forest. It remains heavily dependent on the French state and is France’s largest region in terms of surface area as well as the least densely populated in the French overseas territories. However, its population, one of the youngest in France, is expected to increase by 2040 to half a million inhabitants.


Since December 2015, both the region and department have been ruled by a single assembly within the framework of a new territorial collectivity. Te French Guiana Assembly is in charge of regional and departmental government. It is the second poorest of France’s five overseas departments, with an unemployment rate of over 20 per cent while around 40 per cent of the population lives in poverty.


P44 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS


Economic Outlook


Besides the French space centre at Kourou, fishing and forestry are its most important economic activities. Te economy is tied closely to that of mainland France through subsidies and imports. Te Space Center is the department’s greatest source of economic activity, employing close to 5,000 people and generating about 15 per cent of its GDP. Spaceport activities generate around 9,000 jobs directly and indirectly in French Guiana, contributing around 40 per cent of the territory’s private wages.


In 2017, a five-week protest was held throughout the territory during which demonstrators blocked access to the spaceport as part of a general strike that brought the local economy to a standstill. As a result, the French government agreed to increase spending. However, the crime rate and unemployment rate remains high and overall not much has changed since then.


Gambling in French Guiana


Te gambling industry follows the same regulations as France meaning that horserace betting and sports betting are run by Pari


French Guiana has its own space port. The site for the space centre, the jungle near Kourou, was chosen by the French government in 1964.


The space centre is made up of three organisations; the European Space Agency; the French Space Agency; and Arianespace, a


private commercial enterprise


developing the Ariane rocket.


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