Revelation : Haitians Unwanted in France

As the dramatic situation is getting out of hand on the island now devastated by cholera, Haitians living in France denounce the fact that, far from keeping its promises, the French government prevents their families from getting into France.

When he saw Éric Besson in Orly last week welcoming thirty-five Christians from Irak with great pomp, Yves Pierre-Louis saw red. “We are treated like dogs. And you know why? Because we are Blacks, because we are Haitians.” This is just the latest humiliation for this French native of the island, who has been trying since the earthquake to get his two nieces into France: Kelandine, aged 8, the daughter of his brother and his brother-in-law, both of whom died in the earthquake, and Laoma, aged 11, daughter of his wife’s brother, who also died on January 12. But the French embassy in Port-au-Prince refuses to grant them visas. And like many Haitians living in France or French people native of the island who believed in the French government’s promises, Yves Pierre-Louis is at a loss for what to do, even as the cholera epidemic is spreading on the island.