On Saturday, May 23, 2026, Evens Nicolas from the EVOH Haiti association and I were invited to speak at the Saint-Michel de Mont-Mesly church in Créteil, at the invitation of the Diocesan Pastoral Care, the Antilles-Guyana Commission, and the Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees. The conference bore a title that is a program in itself: “Haiti, Glory and Decadence.”
As this year was dedicated to Haiti by the Diocese of Val-de-Marne, the goal was to pay tribute to those whom history crushed in the ruthless gears of slavery, and to honor the memory of the ancestors who paid the price of freedom with their blood.
For over an hour, Evens Nicolas and I presented a complete, unvarnished, and uncompromising overview of what we call the glory and decadence of Haiti.
 
First, the glory. It is not a facade ornament or a medal pinned to a wall. It is a radical rupture, a fracture in world history. The Haitian Revolution was much more than an uprising: it was the philosophical and military annihilation of the slave system—that bestial capitalism before its time, that cold mechanism that reduced human beings to merchandise, to tools for labor and profit. Haiti was the first nation to say no—not through a declaration of principle signed in a plush lounge, but through fire, blood, and the will of men and women who had everything to lose and gave everything.
Before an audience composed of our Caribbean brothers and sisters—Martinicans, Guadeloupeans, Guyanese, Haitians—I immediately sought to establish a vital nuance, a historical line of demarcation that I have defended for years and had to affirm before official audiences while serving in communication and public relations roles within the diplomatic missions of the Republic of Haiti in France: Haiti did not experience the abolition of slavery. It carried out a revolution.
The revolution of 1803. And it proclaimed its independence on January 1, 1804, at the dawn of a new year, as if to signify that history, too, was starting from scratch. It was necessary to dispel all ambiguity, all confusion between grace granted and freedom seized. One does not abolish what has already been defeated with weapons in hand.
The audience participated extensively, with fervor and intelligence, asking pointed questions, particularly about decadence—that painful side that cannot be avoided if one wishes to be honest.
For Haiti today resembles a magnificent ship whose compass has been gradually stolen, its sails cut, and its hull weighted down. Over the decades, it has become a vassalized country, losing its sovereignty like a tree loses its leaves in autumn—silently, inexorably—and with it, the very fruits of its revolution. Evens Nicolas did not fail to mention the years of pain and dismay, particularly the devastating earthquake of January 2010, that telluric wound that exposed, beneath the rubble, the extreme fragility of a state left without a safety net, without structure, and without social justice worthy of the name.
In the afternoon, a solemn Mass was celebrated with great pomp, carried by the fervor of the Haitian community. The Sainte-Thérèse Choir from the Diocese of Pontoise provided the singing, and they did much more than sing: they caused a sensation. The voices rose, rich and deep like the soil of Hispaniola, carrying both the weight of mourning and the brilliance of reclaimed dignity. Each note seemed to cross centuries, weaving an invisible bridge between Port-au-Prince and Créteil, between ancestors and the living, between the suffering of yesterday and the hope of today. It was music that did not just fill the space: it transformed it.
The ceremony was held in the presence of Mr. Jocelyn Fleuriscat, representing His Excellency Mr. Louino Volcy, Ambassador of the Republic of Haiti to France, which gave the event a dimension that was both official and deeply human. And then there was the flag. The bicolor flag of the Republic of Haiti flew proudly in the Paris suburbs, in Créteil—like a breeze from the Caribbean, unexpected and moving, in the heart of the Parisian concrete. Blue and red. The colors of a nation that dared. That bled. That still resists.
Seeing it there, in that church on the outskirts of Paris, was to measure both the distance traveled and the road that remains. It was to remember that the glory of Haiti is not a bygone past—it is a flame that each generation has the duty not to let go out.
This May 23, 2026, will remain, for those who were there, a rare day—one of those where history ceases to be a narrative and becomes a living, palpable, almost visceral presence. 
 
Maguet Delva 
Paris