Havana - French President Francois Hollande urged an end to the US trade embargo of Cuba and envisioned a larger French role in Cuba's engagement with the West during the first visit by a French head of state to Cuba.
Cuba is in foreign policy talks with both the European Union and the United States amid intense world interest in Cuba following detente with Washington in December.
Hollande, traveling with a host of French business executives, is the first serving Western European leader to visit Cuba since Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez came in 1986, and he said he expected others to soon follow his example.
“Anything France can do to make sure ... the opening is confirmed, so that the measures that have so harmed the development of Cuba can be rescinded, so that the identity of each country is respected, this is what has to be done,” Hollande said in an exchange with students, following a speech at Havana University.
Hollande previously said his trip had “special meaning” since US President Barack Obama reversed more than half a century of hostile US policy toward Cuba in December, when Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced they would restore diplomatic ties and exchange prisoners.
Obama, a Democrat, has asked Congress to remove the embargo but has encountered resistance from Republicans, who control both houses.
France has long opposed the US embargo of Cuba, and lifting it would help French companies doing business here, although an end to the embargo would also increase competition for French grain exporter Groupe Soufflet, which has a niche wheat market in Cuba.
French companies including Soufflet, Air France, telecom operator Orange, hotelier Accor and distiller Pernod Ricard are accompanying him.
As part of the US-Cuba rapprochement in December, Cuba freed 53 people the United States had considered political prisoners.
Hollande had promised to talk about human rights in Cuba, a sensitive subject in a country that represses freedom of assembly and controls the media, but he avoided the subject in his first public event.
“I will talk about human rights because any time there are political prisoners, whenever there are breaches of freedom, France does not remain tight-lipped,” Hollande said in Guadeloupe on Sunday night.
Hollande could also visit retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 88, whose 1959 revolution is generally well regarded in France, especially within Hollande's Socialist Party.
Reuters