Protesters call for travel warning

Large protests have spread throughout French Guiana, blocking roads to neighboring Brazil and Suriname and prompting the US government to issue a travel warning Friday for the French territory in South America.

Hundreds of people have taken part in protests over high crime, the cost of living and anger at the quality of social services such as health care. The Collective of 500 Brothers, the group largely behind the unrest, is demanding that the French government send a minister to negotiate with them, according to spokesman Ken Saint-Luce.

“We, citizens of French Guiana, are tired of living our lives 500 Brothers Collective spokesman Ken Saint-Luce like this. Life over here has become very difficult,” Saint-Luce said in an interview on Surinamese radio station Apintie. “We had been talking to the local government for weeks, but that did not lead to anything concrete.”

The demonstrations have paralyzed French Guiana in recent days as protesters blocked roads and many businesses and schools have closed. A visit of Segolene Royal, the French minister of ecology, to the territory on March 17 was cut short after masked demonstrators from the collective stormed into a regional conference on biodiversity she was attending in the department’s capital city of Cayenne.

We, citizens of French Guiana, are tired of living our lives like this. Life over here has become very difficult.