Emmanuel Macron drew the wrath of Haiti by judging local officials “completely stupid” for having dismissed their Prime Minister ten days ago. Port-au-Prince protested to the head of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot and summoned his ambassador. It all started with a video shot on Wednesday November 20 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio, outside the presence of the press, and which circulated on social networks.
Emmanuel Macron 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,” Emmanuel Macron replied. “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 the head of government Garry Conille, appointed five months earlier by the Haitian Presidential Transitional Council (CPT). “It’s terrible. It’s terrible. And I can’t replace him. They’re completely stupid, they should never have released it, the Prime Minister was great,” he continues before the video s ‘interrupts.
“Unfriendly and inappropriate”
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 obtained by AFP. 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 handed over to Ambassador 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 provide its support to the Haitian people and support all initiatives aimed at restoring security and recreating a path towards a stable political situation. Haitians deserve it,” he declared.
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 by 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.