PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a financial and aid package of nearly half a billion dollars yesterday to assist quake-hit Haiti, as he became France’s first head of state to visit the former French Caribbean colony.
The support package totalling 326 million euros ($447 million) included cancellation of 56 million euros of debt, 100 million euros of fresh funds to be provided over two years and 65 million euros to be channeled through the European Union.
“I have come to tell Haiti’s people that they are not alone … France will be at your side in the long term,” Sarkozy told a news conference in the grounds of the Haitian presidential palace which partly collapsed in the January 12 earthquake.
More than 200,000 people were killed and more than a million left homeless by the quake, one of the most destructive in modern history, which has triggered a big international relief effort and reconstruction plans by foreign donors.
Speaking alongside Haitian President Rene Preval, Sarkozy said his visit, the first ever by a French president to Haiti, aimed to “turn the page” on France’s long history of troubled relations with its former Caribbean territory.
Haiti wrested its independence from France in 1804 after a bloody revolt by black slaves against their white masters.
