Macron says joint Franco-Haiti commission will examine 'painful' past

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron is to set up a joint Franco-Haitian commission to examine France's past with its former Caribbean colony, but he made no mention of the possibility of reparations that Haitian activists have long called for.

Macron said on Thursday that once the commission's work was completed, it would propose recommendations to both governments.

At a United Nations forum in Geneva a year ago, a coalition of civil society groups said France should repay billions of dollars in reparations to Haiti.

The Caribbean country became the first in the region to win its independence in 1804 after a revolt by enslaved people.

But in a move that many Haitians blame for their continuing turmoil, France imposed harsh reparations for lost income when it recognised independence on April 17, 1825, and that debt was only fully repaid in 1947.

"Today, on this bicentenary, we must look history in the face," Macron said. "For France, it also means assuming its share of truth in the construction of memory, so painful for Haiti."

He described the financial indemnity as a decision that "placed a price on the freedom of a young nation, which was thus confronted with the unjust force of history from its very inception".

Macron said France would stand by Haiti in the face of present-day challenges, notably security, which he said was "an absolute priority".

Armed gangs control nearly all of Haiti's capital and surrounding areas and have forced over 1 million people from their homes, contributing to a freezing of the economy and fuelling mass hunger.

France has pledged 4 million euros ($4.2 million) to a U.N. fund financing an international mission to help restore security.

Over the course of his two mandates since 2017, Macron has pushed to increase transparency into France's colonial past, opening access to classified archives and setting up a historian commission on Algeria, among others.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Michel Rose;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Alison Williams)