French President’s Debt Comment in Haiti Reopens Old Wounds About Slave Trade
French President’s Debt Comment in Haiti Reopens Old Wounds About Slave Trade
By Matthieu Jublin
May 12, 2015 | 3:00 pm
French President François Hollande may have put his foot in his mouth ahead of his arrival in Haiti on Tuesday, the final stop on a five-day diplomatic tour of the Caribbean. On Monday, Hollande became the first French head of state to visit Cuba, where he met President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel.
The Cuba visit was widely criticized by officials with France's conservative opposition UMP party, who joked that Hollande would be taking tea with Kim Jong-un next.
Hollande is the second French president to visit Haiti — the former French colony of Saint-Domingue, which gained independence in 1804. In February 2010, then president Nicolas Sarkozy visited Haiti in the aftermath of the 7.0 earthquake that killed upwards of 230,000 people.
Hollande addressed delegates at a Caribbean climate summit on the French Caribbean island of Martinique on Saturday, calling for "rich countries to help poor countries fight global warming." The meeting came ahead of the UN's global climate change conference, which will be held in Paris in December.
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