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French President Emmanuel Macron at the memorial in Kigali
Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
Hundreds of thousands died in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
French President Emmanuel Macron has now asked the country to forgive France's role in the genocide.
“That way, perhaps only those who have gone through the night can forgive us,” Macron said while visiting the memorial in Kigali.
At the time, France did not listen to the warning voices and stood on the side of a regime that was responsible for the genocide, Macron said.
But France was not an accomplice in the genocide.
In Rwanda, members of the Hutu ethnic group killed at least 800,000 people within three months in 1994.
Most of the victims were members of the Tutsi minority, but many moderate Hutu were also killed.
More than 250,000 Tutsi are buried in Kigali alone.
Only recently, a commission of historians had come to the conclusion that the genocide lay heavy responsibility on France.
One conclusion was that Paris remained blind in the face of the preparations for the genocide.
However, there is no evidence of complicity in the deaths of the more than 800,000 people.
Macron's visit to Rwanda was the first by a French president in eleven years.
He wants to initiate a normalization of the relationship between the two countries.
Because of France's behavior in the 1994 genocide, contacts have been clouded to this day.
Macron will travel to South Africa on Friday.
lau / Reuters