Macron wants to shed light on genocide in Rwanda 25 years later

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday launched an attempt to end two years of conflict with Rwanda over his 1994 genocide by appointing experts to shed light on the obscure subject of France's actions in the country during the mbadacres.

In the context of a major event marking the 25th anniversary of the genocide, during which more than 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi, were mbadacred, the French leader announced the creation of a commission of 39 historians and researchers who would immerse themselves in the state archives.

This team of eight people "will be in charge of consulting all the archives of France relating to the genocide … in order to badyze the role and the engagement of France during this period", declared the presidency. .

Rwanda accuses France of having supported the Hutu ethnic forces behind most of the killings and of helping some of the officials escape, allegations that Paris rejects.

Friday's announcement was to coincide with a meeting between Macron and the Ibuka Genocide Survivors' Association, the first such meeting with a French president.

It was a little over six months after Macron opened the archives of another controversial chapter in French history concerning the 1954-1962 war of independence with Algeria, a former colony.

However, it was unlikely that Macron's disaffected genocide would be denied by the invitation of Rwandan President Paul Kagame to attend the weekend commemorations in Rwanda.

The presidency reported scheduling problems and sent a young deputy of Rwandan origin instead.

Marcel Kabanda, the 62-year-old president of Ibuka France, whose family was destroyed by the Rwandan genocide, called the creation of the commission a "strong gesture".

But he also called for caution.

"We have often been disappointed, we have often been betrayed," referring to President François Hollande's 2015 promise to open state archives on genocide, whose scope was ultimately very limited .

Hunting genocide suspects

The French presidency said that historians would take two years to study the entire period from 1990 to 1994 in order to "contribute to a better understanding and better knowledge of the genocide of Tutsis".

Their findings will be used in the material used to teach genocide to French children, the presidency added.

The steps are aimed at turning definitively the page of a quarter century of acrimony and reciprocal recrimination between France and Rwanda.

Paris has always denied being an accomplice to the genocide, saying that the French soldiers mandated by the UN deployed in Rwanda in the last weeks of the genocide had done their best in difficult circumstances.

France's perception of the delay in bringing genocide suspects living in France to justice has also worsened tensions.

Macron announced Friday that it would strengthen the judicial unit to investigate Rwandan genocide cases so that suspects "can be tried within a reasonable time."

Face the French past

Franco-Rwandan relations reached their lowest point in 2006 after a French judge recommended that Kagame be prosecuted by a UN-backed tribunal for the 1994 badbadination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu whose death had triggered the beginning of the genocide.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebel force that ultimately toppled the Hutu genocide regime, quickly broke ties with France for three years.

The turning point came in 2010 when former President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged during a visit to Kigali that France had committed "serious errors of judgment" in Rwanda.

Without excuses, it was seen as a breakthrough in Rwanda, a former Belgian colony that France had jealously defended before the genocide within its sphere of influence in Africa.

The relationship once again hit the turbulence of Holland, but Macron's election paved the way for a new chapter.

During a visit to Paris last year, Kagame congratulated the 41-year-old Frenchman for taking a "cooler" and less paternalistic approach to Africa than his predecessors.

"It changes the neo-colonial positions of the past," he told Young Africa magazine.

Macron is presented as the representative of a new generation of politicians who is not afraid to shed light on France's past.

Last September, he admitted that France had put in place a system facilitating torture during the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence, a conflict that also remains extremely emotional in France.

He also announced that France would open its archives on the thousands of civilians and soldiers reported missing during this war.