François Mitterrand and
"the people of the Élysée did not want to see anything"
during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, told AFP former minister Bernard Kouchner, who welcomes the Duclert report submitted on Friday on French responsibility.
Read also: Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda: a report submitted to Macron points to the "overwhelming responsibilities" of France
This report
"brings a little truth to a huge
French
political fault"
during the genocide of the Tutsi.
"But it's so late, more than 26 years later",
regrets the former Minister of Health and Humanitarian Action under the presidency of François Mitterrand (1992-1993).
As he had already declared to the press, Bernard Kouchner, who went to Rwanda during the genocide, claims to have
"called President François Mitterrand twice to warn him": "he listened to me and says: you are exaggerating ”.
Later, during an exchange with President Mitterrand,
“I asked him: 'why did you protect President Juvénal Habyarimana?'
He replied: 'why do you want me to protect him', that he had only met him twice, that he did not know him ”.
However, the report underlines their proximity.
“The people of the Élysée”
,
“General Quesnot”
(chief of private staff), “General Huchon
”
(then colonel and deputy to General Quesnot) or
“Hubert Védrine”,
then secretary general of the Élysée, have shown
"absolute blindness"
, considers Bernard Kouchner.
"The truth was not sought for a second",
the French decision-makers, prisoners of a struggle
"for influence"
with their Western competitors, took Paul Kagame for
"a servant of the Americans"
, still describes the former humanitarian, to Remarks by the Rwandan president and former leader of the former Tutsi rebellion of the RPF.
“Knowing what was going on was easy”
.
"Blindness"
described in the report is
"a good word"
.
“They (the French government) had all the means to find out what was going on.
They did not do it, ”he
accuses.
