In a video shot Wednesday, November 20 in Rio, Brazil, the French president denigrated the decision of the Haitian Presidential Transitional Council which dismissed the head of government Garry Conille.
Haiti's Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that it had summoned the French ambassador to the Caribbean country and protested against the “comments deemed unacceptable” of President Emmanuel Macron accusing Haitian officials of being “completely stupid”. The head of Haitian diplomacy Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste informed French diplomat Antoine Michon on Thursday afternoon of “the indignation of the Transitional Power at what it considers to be an unfriendly and inappropriate gesture which deserves to be rectified”, according to the ministry press release obtained by an AFP correspondent.
This official text specifies that the French ambassador “recognized that these were unfortunate comments” delivered on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio. “A letter of protest addressed to the Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot was given to the ambassador”according to the press release.
“I defended him, they fired him”
The head of Haitian diplomacy reacted Thursday to a video shot the day before, outside the presence of the press, and which circulated on social networks, of Emmanuel Macron as he left the G20 in Rio for Chile. The French head of state responded, according to his entourage, to a Haitian who questioned him “insistently” by accusing him and Paris “to be 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 added in reference to the November 10 dismissal of head of government Garry Conille, appointed five months earlier, by the Haitian Presidential Transitional Council.
Since the resignation in April of controversial Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the CPT is the head of the executive of this country in chaos and deprived of a president since 2021. “It’s terrible. It's terrible. And I can't replace him. They are complete idiots, they should never have released it, the Prime Minister was great,” continues the French president, before the video interrupts.
