For New Year’s Eve, Élisabeth Borne will be in Guyana. A trip which comes at a time when frustration is growing among local elected officials over the lack of dialogue with the government.
A New Year’s Eve alongside the army but also a political trip. Elisabeth Borne will spend the evening of December 31 with the armed forces present in Guyana. The Prime Minister is visiting this overseas territory which brings together 2,200 soldiers, a thousand gendarmes and which has been in mourning twice this year during missions to fight against illegal gold panning (Some 500 gold panning sites illegal would still be active). Furthermore, in this region at the gateway to the Amazon, 30% of the population is in a situation of extreme poverty. It is in this climate of insecurity and precariousness that the Prime Minister will set down her bags. In front of her, angry local elected officials are waiting for her to discuss the situation on site, while Emmanuel Macron’s action is criticized by local elected officials.
An ambiguous absence
This territory, 90% covered by forests, was not represented at the Amazon summit in August 2023, which brings together the countries of South America with the aim of saving the largest tropical forest in the world. Neither by the President of the Republic, nor by any other representative. A choice which upset the elected officials of Guyana, who would have appreciated a spokesperson for the territory being associated with the summit. Some even mention a “contempt” of the head of state towards the situation on the ground. “We once again have no say in the matter, we will be spectators of the discussions,” regretted Thibault Lechat-Vega, the spokesperson for the Territorial Collectivity of Guyana (CTG) with franceinfo.
To try to justify his absence, Emmanuel Macron assured that France was a “candidate” to join the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization. “I wanted to be the only European head of state invited, alongside European ambassadors, to explain (…) how we finance the Amazon”, but France is “an Amazonian power through Guyana” and “it turns out that today we are not party to the treaty,” declared the President of the Republic.
Golden Mountain
Another source of tension between Guyanese elected officials and the government is the controversial “Montagne d’or” mining project. Initially in favor of the largest primary gold extraction project ever proposed in France, carried by the Russian-Canadian consortium, Emmanuel Macron made an about-face. This vast mining project located partly in the equatorial forest had sparked an outcry since its presentation. The Or de Question collective, which brings together 30 Guyanese associations and 120 NGOs opposed to the project, denounced deforestation and the millions of tonnes of waste generated.
The renewal of the concession was ultimately contested by the State, which it found incompatible with its environmental promises. But the matter is not over, the Council of State decided in October 2023 to refer the dispute between the mining company and the government to the Bordeaux administrative court of appeal. Environmental organizations will closely monitor the decision.
Only one trip in 2017
While expectations remain high in the territory on the environmental front, the Guyanese are also asking for the strengthening of the means of combating insecurity, the opening up of the communes of the interior, recognition of their identity, the improvement failing health services and an education system unsuitable for a galloping population.
On the eve of the 2017 presidential election, a large-scale social mobilization shook Guyana for a month. A general strike had occupied the roundabouts and the Kourou space base, to demand investments in the territory. Signed on April 21, 2017 by local elected officials and the government of the day, the “Guyana Accords” provided for an “emergency plan” of just over a billion euros and allowed a way out of the crisis.
During his only trip to the overseas territory in October 2017, Emmanuel Macron completed his 48-hour visit in a very tense climate. The head of state had even decided not to go to a Cayenne police station in front of which several hundred demonstrators were waiting for him. Seven years later, the State’s commitments are slow to be implemented and the Guyanese are still awaiting a new visit from the Head of State. The President, who had chosen Guyana for his first overseas trip since his re-election in 2022, finally postponed his visit due to a “particularly busy” schedule. No other date has been set.
“Change the relationship”
An expectation which translates into frustration for elected officials, in particular the president of the Territorial Collectivity of Guyana, Gabriel Serville. In November 2023, a Guyanese delegation traveled to mainland France, at the invitation of the Minister Delegate for Overseas Territories, Philippe Vigier. A visit which was the subject of “tense, even heated discussions” between the two camps, according to the newspaper France Guyana. “For many months, we have had the impression of stagnating! We must change the relationship between Paris and overseas and between Paris and Guyana in particular!”, asserted Gabriel Serville at the end of the meeting with the delegated minister. The latter having tried to calm the situation by ensuring that the government’s method “is to ensure that what was promised is achieved”.
If reconciliation does not seem to be imminent, the institutional reform requested by the overseas communities signatories of an “appeal from Fort-de-France” appears just as far away. In May 2022, the presidents of the executives of Guadeloupe, Reunion, Mayotte, Martinique, Saint-Martin and Guyana requested “a profound change in policy” to aid the development of their territories hit by poverty, and solutions to the problems specific to French people overseas, which could go as far as constitutional reform.
The signatories hoped to take advantage of the essential constitutional reform in New Caledonia after the Noumea Agreement of 1998 to also modify the articles of the Constitution concerning overseas communities. But the government has indicated that it will not take place at the same time as the first changes expected in New Caledonia in 2024. In short, on the edge of the Amazon, the signals are not really green.