Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, promised $400 million in aid for quake-stricken Haiti on Wednesday as he made the first visit ever by a French president to what was once his nation's richest colony.
Sarkozy, who was greeted by Haitian President Rene Preval as a brass band played the Marseillaise, toured a French field hospital and viewed the earthquake-ravaged capital through the door of a helicopter.
This is a picture of President Nicolas Sarkozy with Haitian President Rene Preval during a visit at the
Presidential Palace.
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With an eye on that old grievance, France has already said it was cancelling all of Haiti's $77 million debt to Paris.
The aid package also will include reconstruction money, emergency aid and $40 million in support for the Haitian government's budget.
In 1825, crippled by the U.S.-led international embargo that was enforced by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay France 150 million francs in compensation for the lost "property" - including slaves - of French plantation owners.
Economists from the Inter-American Development Bank have estimated the cost of rebuilding Haiti after the quake, which killed more than 200, 000 people and left more than one million homeless, could reach nearly $14 billion, making it proportionately the most destructive natural disaster in modern times.
