As Rwandans began to revive painful memories of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis, on Sunday French President Emmanuel Macron Released a video message from France.
Saying he stood by his comments in May 2021, when he acknowledged France's failure to heed warnings of impending massacres, Macron again stopped short of offering a formal apology.
Macron said: “I have not a word to add, nor a word to take away from what I told you that day.” “We have all left hundreds of thousands of victims in front of this closed hellish door.”
At a time GenocideThe French government has been a long-time supporter of Rwanda's Hutu-dominated regime, leading to decades of tensions between the two countries.
However, French presidencyOn Thursday, France's liaison office published a different text of his speech, in which it stated that Macron would issue a message saying that France and its Western and African allies “could have stopped” the bloodshed, but lacked the will to do so.
However, the final letter did not represent a significant step forward compared to Macron's previous comments on genocide.
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In Rwanda, and among Rwandan survivors living in France, the dialect change surprised many.
He said: “We have to go further, we need apologies and reparations to survivors, and contribute to the fight against historical denial of genocide, which is widespread around the world.
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