The Musée Départemental Alexandre Franconie is the main museum of French Guiana, occupying a fine 19th-century townhouse on the Avenue du Général de Gaulle. The collections cover archaeology, natural history, ethnography of the Amerindian and Maroon peoples, and a substantial section on the notorious penal colony — the bagne — that operated in Guiana from 1852 to 1953.
Highlights include a preserved giant otter, sloths and big cats from the interior rainforest, photographs of life inside the penal colony, and Indigenous artefacts from the Wayana and other interior peoples. Allow about an hour. Labelling is mostly in French.