French Foreign Minister to visit Haiti next week

Saturday, March 27, 2004

PARIS, France (AFP): French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin will visit Haiti on Thursday to hold talks with members of the newly-installed government there, his ministry said.

De Villepin is to meet officials from the new government and "review Franco-Haitian relations," ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said Wednesday.

Some 200 French troops are currently based in Haiti as part of the 3,350-strong multinational force that began deploying there after the February 29 departure of deposed president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Its aim is to help restore order in a crisis that grew into an opposition rebellion last month, followed by Aristide's exile.

Since leaving Haiti, Aristide has claimed to have been forced out by US and French pressure, and has not recognised the government of his Caribbean nation's new US-backed prime minister, Gerard Latortue.

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