Cuban Ambassador to France, Otto Vaillant
Paris, March 18 (RHC)-- Cuba's ambassador to France, Otto Vaillant, has underscored the island's will to maintain its socialist course and defend its independence, a struggle for which he expressed his appreciation for French solidarity.
The diplomat spoke as a guest at the general assembly of the France Cuba association, which he recognized for its more than six decades of support and its rejection of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade.
Vaillant shared with delegates from different departments an update on the Cuban reality, progress and challenges.
In that sense, he addressed the complex existing scenario, marked by factors such as Washington's aggressive policy and the consequences of the geopolitical context, the global economic crisis, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ambassador insisted that the blockade represents the main obstacle, starting from the continuity of the implementation by the government of President Joseph Biden of the vast majority of the 243 measures decreed by his predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump, to tighten the siege.
During the pandemic, the United States tightened the blockade, even boycotting access to the oxygen needed to treat serious patients, denounced Vaillant, who recalled that the island produced its own vaccines to protect the population, a campaign in which it counted on international solidarity through the contribution of syringes, hundreds of thousands donated by French associations, including France Cuba.
In a question and answer session, the diplomat highlighted the relevance of solidarity, for its actions to make known the reality of the island and the hostility it has been facing from Washington for more than 60 years.
The work you carry out is very important, because there are people who think that the blockade does not exist or believe that it ended with Barack Obama, he said at the assembly held in Saint Denis, in the Paris Region.
He also reiterated Cuba's position in favor of peace and nuclear disarmament, and its determination to go ahead with its socialist project.
