Every morning, Nicolas Beytout analyzes political news and gives us his opinion.
This Friday, he returns to the speech of Emmanuel Macron on a visit to Rwanda.
"By standing, with humility and respect, by your side, I come to recognize our responsibilities". For Nicolas Beytout, this sentence pronounced this Thursday in Rwanda by Emmanuel Macron, is historic.
In the sense that it marks a turning point in history.
Pressure has been mounting on France for many years to recognize its share of responsibility for this appalling tragedy which left more than 800,000 dead, men, women and children.
And this recognition was absolutely not obvious, it involved too many people, too many personalities, too many institutions.
To achieve this, it was therefore a long journey.
There have been numerous reports and investigations, until a few weeks ago, the publication of the Duclert report on France's responsibility in this genocide.
In fact, the most difficult in this story has been to say things, to tell the facts and if possible the truth.
For 27 years that this affair sticks to the basques of the French army and tarnishes the reputation of some political figures, including François Mitterrand, a wall of silence had been erected against which came up against the accusations of complicity of France and its army. in the genocide.
Until then, there were only denials.
And this is what Emmanuel Macron decided.
By saying that France had effectively remained "alongside a genocidal regime".
That is France's responsibility: not to have seen, to have let it happen "in a spiral which resulted in the worst".
Alain Juppé, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, said it a few weeks ago, in his own way: "it was an act of international cowardice".
In this tragedy, France's responsibility is that of inaction, not of action.
The head of state therefore did not apologize for the country.
No, on the other hand, he hoped for forgiveness from the victims. In reality, what the President of the Republic did was very difficult. He had to find the right words to admit responsibility without being accused of complicity and even less of guilt in the genocide. Emmanuel Macron has a formula to describe this narrow path: neither denial nor repentance, but recognition. We don't close our eyes, but we don't apologize; we do not erase the past, but we recognize it, we look it in the face. This work of memory is the hallmark of great democracies. Dictatorships often rewrite their past. This is what he managed to establish on the Rwandan case, and the country's authorities welcomed this approach. This is what he started on the Algerian war, but this time,the will of Paris to look at history still comes up against the intransigence of the Algerians. To appease a conflict and close a wound, it takes two.