French President François Hollande called on Monday for an end to the US embargo on Cuba ahead of meetings with President Raul Castro and longtime leader Fidel Castro during a landmark visit to the communist island.

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Speaking in Havana during a landmark visit to promote French and European interests on the island, Hollande vowed that his country would help see to it that "the measures that have so badly harmed Cuba's development can finally be lifted, repealed".

Hollande is the first French president to visit Cuba in more than a century and is also the first Western head of state to make the trip since Havana and Washington in December announced they would seek to normalise relations for the first time in more than half a century.

Hollande held talks with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday and was received by the country’s longtime leader Fidel Castro at his residence.

Hollande landed in Cuba on Sunday as part of a tour of the Antillean islands. Prior to his arrival, he said that France is seeking “to be the first among European nations, and the first among Western nations, to be able to say to the Cubans that we will be at their side if they decide themselves to take needed steps towards opening up".

"Cuba wants to move on to a new phase, a new period, a new time for this island that was victim of an embargo," Hollande said.

He also noted that lifting the full embargo was crucial to opening Cuba up to the rest of the world.

"There are still a lot of measures in place that block trade and business," he said.

France leads EU rapprochement



The European Union suspended relations with Cuba in 2003 over a crackdown on journalists and activists but it opened talks to restore ties in April 2014, aiming to persuade Havana to improve its rights record.

It was under the French presidency of the EU in 2008 that political dialogue was first resumed between Brussels and Havana.

"France has always been a leader in the European Union. The fact that the French president is coming shows France's very important role in the dialogue between Cuba and the European Union," Eduardo Perera from the University of Havana told AFP.

France, which has made its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean a foreign policy priority, has been a strong supporter of the normalisation of ties between Cuba and the EU.

Europe's rapprochement with Cuba began before the December announcement on Cuba-US relations.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius made a brief stopover to Cuba in April 2014, the first visit to the island by France's top diplomat in three decades.

Trade between France and Cuba is modest, worth around $388 million a year, with the balance solidly in France's favour.

But French officials say they recognise the importance of the EU positioning itself politically and economically for when the US embargo is eventually lifted.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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