Haiti

French presence

French community: around 1,000 on the register of French nationals abroad 
Haitian community in France: 87,000 (in 2021) 
Haitian consulates in France: Paris, Cayenne, Pointe-à-Pitre and Bordeaux

Visits

Jean-Pierre Bel, President of the French Senate, accompanied by Senator Bernard Piras, Chair of the France-Caribbean Friendship Group, visited Haiti from 29 July to 2 August 2024, meeting with President Martelly, Prime Minister Lamothe and the Senate President Desras.

François Hollande, President of the French Republic, made an official visit to Port-au-Prince on 12 May 2015. He was accompanied by the Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, Ségolène Royal, the Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, the Minister of Culture and Communication, Fleur Pellerin, the Minister for Overseas France, George Pau-Langevin, the Minister of Social Affairs, Health and Women’s Rights, Marisol Touraine, the Minister of State for Development and Francophonie, Annick Girardin ,and the Minister of State for Foreign Trade, the Promotion of Tourism and French Nationals Abroad, Matthias Fekl.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, made a working visit to Port-au-Prince and Jérémie on 17 and 18 December 2016.

Jean-Marie Le Guen, Minister of State for Development and Francophonie, carried out a working visit to Port-au-Prince from 6 to 8 February 2017. He attended the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect, Jovenel Moïse.

Jovenel Moïse, President of the Republic of Haiti, was in France from 11 to 13 December 2017. He was received at the Élysée Palace by President Emmanuel Macron on 11 December and participated in the One Planet Summit on 12 December 2017.

Leslie Voltaire, chairman in office of the Presidential Transitional Council, was received at the Élysée Palace by President Macron on 29 January 2025. At the same time, Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, was received at the Foreign Ministry by his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot.

Cultural, scientific and technical cooperation

France’s activities in Haiti are centred around projects led by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Agence Française de Développement (AFD, French Development Agency), local government bodies and state and partly state-controlled bodies. France is also engaged in cooperation within European and multilateral frameworks.

The AFD has been working in Haiti since 1976, mainly in the sectors of agriculture, urban services and more recently health, education and governance. It was very active in the country following the natural disasters in Haiti in recent years (2010 and 2021 earthquakes and Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Melissa in 2025) and is continuing to adapt its response to the changing situation. In 2020 and 2021, the AFD acted quickly to support the COVID-19 response in the areas of prevention, diagnostics and treatment. The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS) also sent 75,000 antigen tests.

Our cultural cooperation is in line with the joint declaration signed by Haiti’s President Martelly and President François Hollande, during the latter’s official visit to Port-au-Prince on 12 May 2015. The aim of this roadmap, funded by France for a total of €50 million over five years, is to implement an education plan, in a continuum bringing together educational cooperation (teacher training and vocational training, provided by the AFD), boosting bilingualism and academic, scientific and research cooperation, with emphasis on access to and use of new technologies. It will be supported by the activities of the five Alliance Française branches in the country, the Institut Français of Haiti and the Lycée Alexandre Dumas school, which currently has 200 pupils.

During their meeting in Paris on 29 January 2025, the chairman in office of Haiti’s Presidential Transitional Council, Leslie Voltaire, and the French President, Emmanuel Macron, decided to form a joint committee of French and Haitian historians to examine every dimension of our shared past. President Macron published a statement in this sense on 17 April 2025, on the 200^th anniversary of the decree by the King of France, Charles X, that recognized Haiti’s independence in return for compensation. Welcoming that statement, the Presidential Transitional Council released a communiqué on 23 April 2025 stating its desire to ensure the success of the joint committee, which expresses shared will. This committee will be co-chaired by Haiti’s Gusti-Klara Gaillard-Pourchet and France’s Yves Saint-Geours. It will seek to make recommendations to the two governments by December 2026 to improve the transmission of the countries’ shared history and relations.

Other cooperation

In the field of police cooperation, France is providing long-term support to build the capacities of the Haitian National Police (expertise, training and equipment). For example, 48 Haitian police officers, including eight instructors, received training delivered locally by 3 experts from the French National Police’s Search, Assistance, Intervention and Deterrence Unit (RAID) from 12 to 23 October 2025. If both bilateral support and assistance through Organization of American States (OAS) and Francopol are taken into account, 400 Haitian police officers from operational units have been trained by French elite forces. Attention is also focused on fighting organized crime, with a regional approach and programmes extended to the whole Caribbean region.

More than 100 Haitian military personnel have also received training delivered in Martinique by the French Armed Forces in the Antilles since late 2024, and this cooperation is set to continue in 2026.

In the humanitarian sector, France’s support has risen sharply over the last 7 years, from €700,000 in 2018 to €16 million in 2025. French food aid is now entirely concentrated on local purchasing, which aims to build the capacity of Haitian farmers, with produce then allocated to the national school cafeteria programme.