He attracted the wrath of Port-au-Prince. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Haiti announced Thursday that it had summoned the French ambassador after “remarks deemed unacceptable” by President Emmanuel Macron, who accused Haitian officials of being “completely stupid” for having dismissed him there ago ten days their Prime Minister.
It all started with a video shot on Wednesday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio, outside the presence of the press, and which circulated on social networks. The French president then left Brazil for Chile. In this video, the Head of State responds, according to his entourage, to a Haitian who calls on him “insistently” by accusing him and France “of being responsible for the situation in Haiti”.
“There frankly, it was the Haitians who killed Haiti, leaving drug trafficking behind,” replies Emmanuel Macron. “And there, what they did, the Prime Minister was great, I defended him, they fired him! », he adds, in reference to the dismissal on November 10 of Garry Conille, appointed five months earlier by the Haitian Presidential Transitional Council (CPT). “It’s terrible. And I can't replace him. They are complete idiots, they should never have released it,” he continues before the video cuts off.
The authorities of Haiti, a poor Caribbean country in the midst of political, socio-economic, security and humanitarian chaos, reacted strongly. Foreign Minister Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste summoned French Ambassador Antoine Michon on Thursday and protested against President Macron's “remarks deemed unacceptable,” according to an official statement.
“Unfortunate” comments
Port-au-Prince expressed “the indignation of the Transitional Power at what it considers to be an unfriendly and inappropriate gesture which deserves to be rectified” and “a letter of protest addressed to the Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot was presented to Ambassador Antoine Michon. According to Haitian diplomacy, the French diplomat “recognized that these were unfortunate comments”.
Arriving in Chile on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron returned to the Haitian crisis during a speech on the relationship with Latin America delivered to the Chilean Congress in Valparaiso. “France will continue to support the Haitian people and support all initiatives aimed at restoring security and recreating a path towards a stable political situation. Haitians deserve it,” he said.
The decision to dismiss Garry Conille came as the CPT wanted to change officials in the Ministries of Justice, Finance, Defense and Health, against its advice. For Garry Conille, “the resolution of the Presidential Transitional Council (…) is clearly tainted with illegality”. He was replaced on November 11 by businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé who promised to restore security and organize the first elections since 2016.
Deprived of a president since 2021, Haiti has suffered from chronic political instability for decades. The country also faces gang violence, accused of murders, kidnappings and sexual violence. At least 150 people were killed in a week in the capital Port-au-Prince, now 85% controlled by these criminal gangs, bringing the death toll to at least 4,544 deaths in the country since the start of the year, according to the UN.
