PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Over 60 rights groups signed a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron calling for reparations to Haiti over the crippling payments it paid France as compensation for lost property - including slaves - after its independence.

The letter dated on Tuesday came as activists in Haiti, which has the lowest GDP per capita in the Americas and is battling a worsening gang conflict amid little international support, call for billions of dollars in reparations.

"The wealth extracted under this ransom set Haiti's GDP growth back by decades, and resulted in a cycle of foreign aid dependence and entrenched debt that persists to this day," the letter said. "It is long past time for France to acknowledge and remedy this injustice."

Signatories included diaspora and reparations groups in the United States, Africa, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Macron in April said he would set up a joint Franco-Haitian commission to examine their "painful" past but avoided discussing reparations.