Home » Macron: France recognizes its responsibility in the Rwandan genocide

Macron: France recognizes its responsibility in the Rwandan genocide

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After announcing it in a tweet published before taking off for Kigali – “I have the deep conviction that in the next few hours we will write together a new page of our relationship with Rwanda and Africa”, today he really wrote that page. During a speech at the Genocide Memorial which in 1994 marked the tragic culmination of the ethnic conflict between Hutu and Tutsi, President Emmanuel Macron made a public and official MEA culpa, in the name of France, for the massacres of 27 years ago in which about one million mostly Tutsi people were killed.

“France recognizes the share of suffering it inflicted”

“France recognizes the share of suffering it has inflicted on the Rwandans”, Macron began: “It did not become an accomplice – but for too long it has made silence prevail over the examination of truth”. Macron’s trip to Rwanda aims to be the “final stage in the normalization of relations” with France, after more than 25 years of tensions linked to the role played by Paris in that terrible tragedy. “This path of recognition, through our debts, our gifts, offers us the hope of getting out of this night and walking together again. On this path – Macron continued, in the course of a 20-minute speech – only those who have gone through the night can, perhaps, forgive, give us the gift of forgiving ourselves ».

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Efforts to normalize bilateral relations between the two countries

The remains of over 250,000 of the approximately 800,000 victims of the genocide, essentially Tutsi, are buried at the Memorial in Kigali, capital of the Republic of Rwanda. Previously, Macron visited the Museum of Memory, with pedagogical signs, videos and testimonies, but also showcases with skulls, bones and tattered clothes, placing a wreath of flowers. The French leader’s goal is to achieve a definitive normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries, made difficult for over a quarter of a century by the role played by France at the time of the genocide.

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