The Cuba Linda French Association highlighted today the organization in France of five travel groups to the island that will combine tourist activities with the rapprochement to the island and its challenges in the face of US hostility.

Paris.- Speaking to Prensa Latina, Didier Lalande, the president of the association created in 1998, said that more than 70 French are part of those groups, with the first arriving in Cuba at the end of next week.

In addition to getting to know the natural beauty of the island and its people, these visits will allow them to see the reality of a people resisting amid many hardships an economic, commercial, and financial blockade of more than 60 years, he said.

According to Lalande, the participants will carry donations in their luggage on the trips, particularly medicines.

He also said that Cuba Linda will follow up and support projects such as Soñarte, a community initiative in Havana, and Korimakao, which promotes culture in Ciénaga de Zapata, Matanzas.

Regarding the traditional French presence in the celebrations of May 1st, International Workers’ Day, in Cuba, he stressed that two of the organized groups will participate.

In April, Lalande will receive the Friendship Medal awarded by the Cuban government to people with a history of solidarity and accompaniment to the Caribbean nation.

This recognition was given in November in Paris, on the eve of the XIX European Continental Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba, to several Frenchmen for their support and commitment in actions such as the struggle against the U.S. blockade, at a time when the president of Cuba Linda was in Havana. (PL)