Three ministers for Guyana. Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, his Justice colleague Eric Dupond-Moretti, and Gabriel Attal, of Public Accounts, are traveling on the island. They participated in the Assises de la sécurité in Cayenne, Friday, September 30, and announced a whole series of additional means while the department is in the grip of an outbreak of violence against a backdrop of drug trafficking.
Insecurity is the number one concern of Guyanese. A problem raised, for example, by Sophie Charles, the mayor of Saint-Laurent du Maroni, the second most populated municipality in Guyana after Cayenne, located in the northeast of the region. “During the town festival, we put gates and searches at the entrance this year because we were a little scared. As a result, we have a lot of weapons seized: ammunition, knives… Lots of edged weapons, says the aedile.
Thirty homicides since the beginning of the year, a murder rate almost ten times higher than that of the metropolis and the cocaine traffic which explodes. New measures have been announced to deal with this dramatic situation. Nearly 200 additional police and gendarmes will be deployed, including the installation of a Raid antenna to better fight against gangs. Specific means will be released for the airport where the cocaine transits to Paris. Customs staff will be doubled, for example, but not only.
“Milimetric wave scanners, that is to say which will look at the entire body, will be installed at Cayenne airport”, says Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. “Today, there is roughly one in three flights that is checked. And when it reaches 6,000 or 8,000, we stop checking because we cannot do the treatmenthe explains. From now on, with the means we put in, 100% of passengers’ passengers will be checked”concludes the Minister.
On the justice side, the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti promises around twenty additional positions, especially magistrates and clerks.