President Raul Castro bid farewell at the Jose Marti International Airport his French peer Francois Hollande, who concluded today a three-day official visit to the Caribbean country.
"Thanks for hospitality," Hollande told the press before boarding the plane that will take him to Haiti, last stop of a tour of the Caribbean.
On the other hand, the Cuban president stated that the fact that he has personally come to say good-bye is an example of the satisfaction of this visit.
Hollande, of the Socialist Party, complied here with an extensive agenda that included a lecture at the Main Lecture hall of the Havana University, where he urged for ending the U.S. blockade on Cuba, and said he will do everything possible because those measures could be finally canceled.
He also recognized the role played by this nation in Latin America and its role in the peace process in Colombia.
"Coming to Cuba is to come to a country that represented for Latin America a way of expression, claim of dignity and independence. This explains to play an important role in many mediations and favors peace," he said.
After attending the ceremony of signing of several cooperation agreements at the University of Havana, the president opened the new headquarters of the French Alliance, at the central Paseo del Prado, and broke the protocol with an impromptu walk through that traditional avenue.
This is the first visit in history carried out by a French president to Cuba.