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France’s president says that making Haiti pay for its independence was unjust

France's president says that making Haiti pay for its independence was unjust

French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that historic injustice was imposed on Haiti when it was forced to pay a colossal indemnity to France in exchange for its independence 200 years ago.

Macron also announced the creation of a joint French-Haitian historical commission to ‘’examine our shared past’’ and assess relations, but did not directly address longstanding Haitian demands for reparations.

France ″subjected the people of Haiti to a heavy financial indemnity, ... This decision 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 in a statement.

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- Once you start looking at reparations for slavery and colonialism, you quickly realize it's a debt that the former colonizers will never be able to repay.
  And to be honest, for wrongs that were committed over a 350+ year period, it doesn't make sense to repay a debt within a single lifetime.
  So I agree with you, something would be better than nothing.
  But it is important to make an inventory on what would be justly owed and what has been paid back to date and in what form. Perhaps this process should also last 350 years.
  
  Once you start looking at reparations for slavery and colonialism, you quickly realize it's a debt that the former colonizers will never be able to repay.
  Why, because it would be as financially ruinous as the ones imposed on Haiti were?
  
  Yeah, and since repayment is probably a leftist policy, that would likely usher in far-right imperialist governments. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do some sort of sustainable payment-each-year over a long time.
  
  Far-right imperialist governments are ushering in right now across Europe despite the scarcity of, as you say, leftist policies... Maybe it's because it's not about horseshoe theory, opposites attract and all that, so much as: capitalists strip away the democratic facade whenever their infinite growth model hits limits and so they try to cut corners, decrease regulation - Trump's latest deregulations are a striking example of that.
  
  horseshoe theory
  no i agree that is nonsense. but that's not what i'm saying, and i'm not calling anything far-left to begin with. horseshoe is not just people challenging incumbency by going with the rivals.
  the scarcity of, as you say, leftist policies
  that's not true, but let's assume it is and change that to liberal. you're right that such social stuff is more liberal than leftist. and studies have shown that in the global north it's a trend in challenging the incumbents—which have been liberal for a while—under the global covid economy problems, an incidental occasion driving the trend. now who do you think they'll vote for when the ruling government knowingly bankrupts its economy, which it has propped up as the system of life for millennia to support itself?
  capitalists strip away the democratic facade whenever their infinite growth model hits limits and so they try to cut corners, decrease regulation
  it's actually the opposite: whenever we're content with boons they take everything away, and then when all get poorer during recessions the consumer is comparatively powerless. take the roaring 20s, the gilded age. (and it's not like democracy is all just more regulation either. i trust that you have met rednecks and oppose the PATRIOT mass surveillance act.)
  
  Why did you side blur? We dont need that extra width.
  
  I didn't do it; I just grabbed the pic from knowyourmeme.com
  
  The numbers may sound big to us peons but I'm sure once calculated they'd be a fraction of the countries annually gdp. For the US it would probably only take pausing some military contracts. $40 million per jet adds up quickly and there would be knock on savings from maintenance that would not be required.
  It's literally a lack of will and uses the same excuses that keep the 99% poor.
  Think of the jobs that would be created trying to calculate each individual's owed amount.
- Based on a quick Wikipedia look up on this, it effectively took Haiti 122 years to pay of this debt with the final payment being in 1947.
  The original debt was 150 million francs and while I couldn't immediately find an inflation calculator for francs that went back to 1825, I was able to convert it to USD and apply a USD inflation calculation to give a value of $7,155,188,451.38 USD which is 5,780,760,331.77 francs.
  France was originally graceful enough to require the 150 million amount in five annually payments and was gracious enough to reduce the remaining debt in 1838 but I see no reason for anyone but the Haitians to decide if they would want to return the favor.
  With a GDP of 3.2 million, that feels more than doable. France may have to cut their baguettes consumption but I believe in their ability to yank those bootstraps.
- Not just a reasonable economy. They were one of the most profitable colonies in the whole world during slavery. All that wealth is currently locked-up in Europe.
- at the very least, even if reparations aren’t likely, if aid is needed after some kind of emergency then you can possibly get more by pointing and saying that the aid is just interest on what was taken

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