Republic of Guyane-Cayenne

My entry for "Map of the Fortnight 172: The Empty Quarter" over on alternatehistory.com

During the Second World War, American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was faced with a certain dilemma after his country had entered World War Two. FDR saw one of his allies, Charles de Gaulle, as an "apprentice dictator", leading to very cool relations between the USA and Free France. Interestingly enough the French colonies in the Americas didn't initially support de Gaulle but rather stayed loyal to the pro-German Vichy Regime. Run by the French admiral Georges Robert, these colonies for instance served as German refueling stations in the Battle of the Caribbean. However the population there was generally pro-Free French, which was evident in the quick takeover of St. Pierre & Miquelon in 1941. By 1943 the calls to join Free France were deafening. In our timeline these colonies came to de Gaulle in the first half of 1943 when Admiral Robert abandoned his residence on Martinique and fled to the United States. In late 1944 he would be jailed for collaboration by the Free French.

In this scenario he and his pro-Vichy administrators abandon Martinique not for the United States but for French Guiana, trying his hardest to prevent "de Gaullist agitation" in the small South American colony. When the Vichy Regime fled to the German city of Sigmaringen in 1944 Robert declares his neutrality and appeals to the United States to help maintain it. The Roosevelt administration, skeptical of de Gaulle, decides to support this and, after the conclusion of World War Two, manages to convince the French government in Paris to allow for the independence of French Guiana under a regime led by Georges Robert. The tiny republic, now calling itself Guyane-Cayenne, maintained close ties to Washington and attracted several former French collaborators who managed to avoid long jail sentences.

Guyane-Cayenne now has an estimated population of 230,422 (at an area of 83,534 km² or 32,253 sq mi), with about 22 percent of the population classified as white. Racially-based economic discrepancies still haunt the nation, though the government did become more inclusive starting in the late 1970s. Guyane-Cayenne did participate in Operation Condor during the Cold War and the city of Kourou has hosted a US military base since 1952. The regime is a member of the Union of South American Nations and has good relations with neighboring Brazil and the Dutch overseas country of Suriname. Relations with France have become cordial in the 1980s after the democratization in the late 1970s.