France's Space Age Launchpad

Not technically a nation at all, this tiny "overseas department" would be just another sandy, palm-fringed vestige of France's colonial empire, except that its equatorial location and continued control by France make it an ideal launchpad for European Space Agency spacecraft. Its nearly 150,000 people enjoy a popularly elected legislature, but French Guiana's executive and judicial branches still take their marching orders from France.

U.S. arms sales in the Clinton years Direct government sales Government-approved sales (scale in millions of dollars)

Jobs connected with satellite launching, combined with orderly French rule and roughly $500 million per year in cash from Paris, have provided benefits such as "good roads, decent health care, and a generous social security system," according to the Washington Times, but France gets nervous in the face of any outright bids for independence. In May 1997 it arrested Alain Michel, leader of a pro-independence party, alleging that he was connected with November 1996 riots that shook the country. After spiriting Michel and four "accomplices" to prison in Martinique, the government deployed armored vehicles and tear gas to break up a crowd of hundreds that had gathered at the capital's central police station to demand information on the status of detainees connected with Michel.

Although it is a relatively poor country, French Guiana has bought or been approved to buy more than $1.04 billion in arms from U.S. arms makers since the dawn of the Clinton administration.

--Paul D. Kretkowski

Flags courtesy of World Flag Database