ESA launches French Guiana. Since it is cheaper to launch closer to the equator with the extra speed provided by the earth's rotation.
It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
It has the same status in France as Alaska does in the US.
(Had to check: free movement does apply to Guianans, but in the other direction it's not part of Schengen)
It's not in Schengen, like most overseas territories in the EU, to limit illegal immigration into the EU (see Ceuta as well).
I don't thing the term "colony" holds. It is anachronic and refers to a system that no longer exists.
The same point applies elsewhere: Guinea became independent from French colonial rule in 1958, but independence didn't magically erase the economic structures, institutions, and inequalities inherited from colonialism. Today, a large share of Guinea's population still lives in poverty despite the country's enormous natural-resource wealth.
So "it's not a colony" is correct as a matter of constitutional law. But using that fact to imply that colonial history is irrelevant to present-day economic and social conditions is a much stronger claim, and one that's harder to defend.
We don't think of the US and Canada as colonies because the vast majority of the native population was genocided.
>It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
That's the dumbest comment i read since a long time, thanks.