For Macron, France 'could have stopped the genocide' but 'didn't have the will'

First modification: 04/05/2024 – 11:03

2 min

For Emmanuel Macron, France, which “could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will to do so”, the Elysée reported this Thursday, while Rwanda prepares to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide for 100 days. in 1994 against the Tutsis. The massacres began on April 7, 1994 and killed between 800,000 and one million people.

The French president, who has already recognized his country's “responsibility” in the genocide in 2021, will intervene on Sunday “in a video that he will publish on his social networks,” added an Elysée source.

“The Head of State will point out in particular that, when the phase of total extermination of the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act, thanks to its knowledge of the genocides revealed to us by the survivors of the Armenians and the Holocaust, and that France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will to do so,” adds the same source. As a reminder, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) withdrew 90% of its peacekeepers just two weeks after the massacres began.

Paris indicates that this speech will be the continuation of the one given by the French president in Kigali in May 2021. On that occasion, the President relied on the conclusions of the Duclert report, which had just been delivered by a commission of historians in charge of the subject. Shortly after the report was published, Professor Vincent Duclert declared to RFI how “France had contributed to reinforcing the racist drift and excess of weapons” of the Hutu government of the time.

Invited to the commemorations by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, to whom he is very close (Kagame calls him “my friend”), Emmanuel Macron will not attend. He will be represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Séjourné, and the Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville.

An “important step”

The Ibuka France association, which brings together survivors of the 1994 Tutsi genocide residing in France, reacted to the Elysée announcement. Its president, the historian Marcel Kabanda, declared himself “very satisfied” with what he described as an “important step” that had just been taken. He called on France to go further and apologize to the victims of the genocide.

The reaction of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda, which has been following the trail of the Rwandan genocidaires for decades, is measured. Alain Gauthier recognizes a small step forward, but considers it too little. “It's a small step forward, but for the survivors, for the victims, it doesn't mean much. It simply recognizes that, beyond the heavy and overwhelming responsibility, there was a complete lack of will to intervene.”

In his opinion, we must go further and not be “afraid to use the word complicity.” “If the French government of 1994 did not have the will to intervene, even knowing what was happening and what was going to happen, we must recognize the complicity of the French State.”