This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Nicolas Sarkozy promised €230m (£200m) in aid for Haiti today as he made the first visit by a French president to what was once his ­nation's richest colony. Sarkozy, who was greeted by the Haitian president, René Préval, as a brass band played the Marseillaise, toured a French field hospital and viewed the remains of the capital through the door of a helicopter.

"I want only to say to the Haitian people, 'You are not alone'," Sarkozy said on the grounds of Haiti's National Palace, one of many government buildings shattered by the 12 January earthquake.

Many were glad for the aid in a nation that was desperately poor even before the catastrophe that killed more than 200,000 people and caused billions of dollars damage.

"It is a pleasure to welcome the president because we want France to help us," said Ovulienne Fortis, 38, sitting in front of a squalid open-air camp where hundreds of earthquake survivors now live.

Some Haitians also see France's renewed interest in their nation as a counterbalance to the US, which has sent troops there three times in the past 16 years.

But Sarkozy's visit is also reviving bitter memories of the crippling costs of Haiti's 1804 independence. A third of the population was killed in an uprising against exceptionally brutal slavery, an international embargo was imposed to deter slave revolts elsewhere and 90m pieces of gold were demanded by Paris from the world's first black republic. The debt hobbled Haiti for much of its history.

Some people handed out fliers in the streets protesting against Sarkozy's visit and blaming France for enslaving Haiti.

Sarkozy acknowledged the "wounds of colonisation" during comments at the undamaged French Embassy, and later said, "I know well the story of our countries on the question of debt."

With an eye on that old grievance, France has already said it was cancelling all of Haiti's €56m debt. The aid package will also include reconstruction money, emergency aid and €30m in support for the Haitian government's budget.

The Haitian prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, said the budgetary support was crucial: "It means we are going to use it the way we want," he told AP.

Sarkozy said Haiti needs a reconstruction plan that bolsters the outlying provinces to help shift people away from Port-au-Prince, the Caribbean's most densely populated capital. He said one reason the death toll was so high was that the city was not built to sustain such a large population.

The idea is similar to proposals from Haitian, US and UN officials to move power away from the devastated capital and boost agriculture and tourism.

Haiti has been plagued by natural disasters and poor management even before a magnitude seven earthquake smashed the capital, Port-au-Prince, leaving more than a million homeless.

Haitian politicians this week diplomatically skirted a demand that ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide raised in 2004: French reparations for past damages.

In 1825, crippled by a US-led international embargo that was enforced by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay France 150m francs in compensation for the lost "property" – including slaves – of French plantation owners.

By comparison, France sold the US its immensely larger Louisiana Territory in 1803 for just 60m francs. The amount for Haiti was later lowered to 90m gold francs.

Haiti did not finish paying the debilitating debt – which was swollen by massive interest payments to French and American banks – until 1947.

But Haiti's wealth was already destroyed. It had been the world's richest colony, providing half the globe's sugar and other exports including coffee, cotton, hardwood and indigo that exceeded the value of everything produced in the US in 1788. By the early 1780s, half of Haiti's forests were gone, leading to the devastating erosion and extreme poverty that bedevils the country today.

France's other former colonies in the region – Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Martin, St Barts and Guiana – all have voted to remain part of France and send legislators to the French parliament.