French President Francois Hollande has announced that France will cancel all of Haiti’s debt.
In an address at the opening of the memorial and cultural centre in Guadeloupe on Sunday, Hollande said Haiti’s debt of US$81.2 million will be cancelled.
The President, who is scheduled to visit Haiti on Tuesday, however rejected demands from activists to pay billions in reparations.
Haiti, which became the world’s first black republic after winning its war of independence in 1804, agreed to pay the debt in exchange for official recognition from France in 1825.
In 2001, France passed a law that recognized the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity.
In 2010, then French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Haiti in the aftermath of an earthquake that killed upwards of 100,000 people. That marked the first visit from a sitting French president in the nation’s history.
Source-CMC
