Members of the French Communist Party (PCF) in the Paris Region today reiterated their support for Cuba in the face of the US blockade and agreed to promote solidarity with the island.

At a meeting in the town of Malakoff, which is celebrating 100 years of communist rule in this town in the department of Hauts-de-Seine, they discussed the consequences for the Cuban people of more than six decades of economic, commercial and financial siege, a policy they described as criminal and illegal.

The dominant theme of the forum was the campaign launched by the leadership of the PCF to support the largest of the Antilles, with the presence of the coordinator of this initiative, Vincent Govelet, who gave the audience details of the actions underway, including the shipment of a container of medicines and supplies for the health sector.

Govelet told Prensa Latina that the expectation is to send the container to the Caribbean country before the summer, in what will be the first shipment as part of the support effort, which includes more than twenty hospital beds.

According to the coordinator, the campaign of solidarity with Cuba has a national scope and has a structure to guarantee its functioning, duration over time and joint work with mayors’ offices, French associations and trade unions, in particular the General Confederation of Labour (CGT).

With regard to the objectives, he stressed that there are three: political support, economic aid through donations and other activities, and the promotion of cooperation, so that projects can be agreed from French soil for the development of the Antillean nation.

The participants in the meeting considered it important to raise French public awareness of the Cuban reality, which is often ignored or manipulated in the media, and to denounce the damage caused by the blockade in various areas of society.

The deputy mayor of Malakoff and secretary general of the PCF section, Michel Aouad, pointed to the right of the island’s inhabitants to choose their destiny and condemned Washington’s aggressiveness.

This is a brutal, unjust and criminal policy, which is inconceivable in the 21st century, because we see an imperialism ready to crush those who resist its dictates, he told Prensa Latina.

Aouad highlighted the launch of the solidarity campaign in Malakoff and the quick response of the communists to it, with the contribution of money at the meeting itself.

For her part, the first deputy mayor of the commune, Sonia Figuères, acknowledged the militant and solidarity-based tradition of the city and its commitment to support the just causes of the people.

Cuba confronts imperialism and for us it is important to involve everyone in supporting this struggle and a country that suffers the consequences of an unjust blockade, she said.

On behalf of Cubans living in France and an umbrella organisation, Haydeline Díaz shared with the PCF members examples of the impact of Washington’s aggressiveness.

She also presented some of the actions being carried out to help her compatriots on the island and to make the reality of Cuba known.

Among the measures highlighted in Malakoff’s forum was the pressure on the French government and the European Union to react energetically against the US blockade and to apply the existing mechanisms in the old continent to confront the extraterritoriality of this policy.