FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron has publicly acknowledged France’s “overwhelming responsibility” in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
“France did not understand that, while trying to prevent a regional conflict, or a civil war, it was in fact standing by the side of a genocidal regime,” Macron said Thursday following a visit to the Gisozi memorial in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
“By doing so, it endorsed an overwhelming responsibility,” Macron added, in the strongest public admission of responsibility from a French leader to date.
This historic statement was pronounced during Macron’s trip to Rwanda, a country central to the President’s strategy to reshape France’s image in Africa.
Rwandan genocide survivors’ groups, speaking to CNN, had mixed reactions to French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement.
President of survivors association Ibuka France Etienne Nsanzimana said that, “although survivors wanted clear apologies,” French President Emmanuel Macron had “asked for forgiveness in other words” in a highly
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