Sarkozy offers aid to quake-hit Haiti during historic visit

Mr Sarkozy, who was greeted by Haitian President Rene Preval as a brass band played the Marseillaise, toured a French field hospital and viewed the earthquake-ravaged capital Port-au-Prince through the door of a helicopter.

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

Many were glad for the aid in a nation that was desperately poor even before the January 12 catastrophe that killed more than 200,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage.

Some Haitians also see France's renewed interest in their nation as a counterbalance to the United States, which has sent troops there three times in the past 16 years. But Mr 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 90 million 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 leaflets in the streets protesting at Mr Sarkozy's visit and blaming France for enslaving Haiti.

Mr 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."

France has already said it was cancelling all of Haiti's 56m debt. Mr Sarkozy said Haiti needs a reconstruction plan that bolsters the outlying provinces to help shift people away from Port-au-Prince, the densely populated capital.