No, I don't think that people in French Guiana could do things like legalize cannabis even though it's illegal in France as a whole, but that's literally what Alaska can do and has done and is doing hahah.
Can you explain why you think French Guiana is more like Alaska or a US state?
More like a US state than an overseas collectivity, territory, or colony.
I'm not addressing the differences between a federation and the french unitary republic. I'm pointing out that french guiana and alaska are both in the category of "normal, standard, national soil."
The above comment relating French Guiana to the 100 departments is a useless descriptor for anyone unfamiliar with departments. The analogy for Alaska will be a useful one for contextualizing French Guiana for the hundreds of millions in the anglophone world who make up the majority of reddit users.
What do you mean? I'm confused what point you're actually trying to make?
They are part of France.
Washington DC is part of the US.
People in Washington DC do not get a voting representative in either House of Congress. People in Washington DC do get to vote for the President of the United States.
People in Washington DC can also do things like legalized marijuana even if the federal government hasn't.
People in French Guiana do get voting representation, but do not even have the level of autonomy that places like Washington DC seem to, so it just seems like it's not a direct one-to-one thing that we can compare as simply as that.
Basically it's a tough example because France is already so much more of a centralized type of federal government compared to the US government that it's kind of tough because the French don't even have anything close to the level of autonomy of our states so of course you can't have something that's halfway in between that and a more centralized control which is sort of the position a lot of American territories and protectorates and such are in.
And we have different levels because for example while people living in Washington DC can vote for the US president, people living in American Samoa or whatever cannot, actually they can vote, they just don't have any or lectures that they are able to send to the electoral college so it's literally just about a show of opinion in those areas because they literally don't have binding elections for the US president as they don't send electors out. Whereas Washington DC can have no more delegates than the state with the smallest number of delegates, which will probably always be three as that's the minimum and there will probably always be at least one state that doesn't have enough people to get more than one representative to join in the House of Representatives.
But at the same time, those areas still have more rights than a lot of people in any part of France do in the sense that they have more autonomy so they can do things like legalize gay marriage or something even if it's not federally recognized they are almost given the level of autonomy of states when it comes to the local control of their areas, but essentially just with no Force because they basically just have no standing if they ever go to court in the federal government wants them to do something a different way lol.
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u/euph_22 4d ago
"Belize is also a spaceport for France and the ESA"
I believe you're thinking of the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre