Paris (AFP)
The report on Rwanda handed over to Emmanuel Macron on Friday demonstrates the responsibility of the elites who did not see the genocide coming in 1994, LREM deputy Hervé Berville told AFP, but there is, according to him, no France's "complicity".
A Tutsi orphan himself, he was Emmanuel Macron's "personal representative" in 2019 at the 25th commemoration of the Rwandan genocide in Kigali and hopes to return to Rwanda at the end of April-beginning of May with Emmanuel Macron.
France's policy in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, led by François Mitterrand and his "ideologically blind" entourage, was "bankrupt" and it bears "overwhelming" responsibilities in the genocide of the Tutsi, according to a scathing report by historians handed over to the president on Friday.
This document, says Mr. Berville, who met the historians who wrote the report, "clearly shows the blindness and the intellectual and political biases of part of the French elites of the time, who did not see this genocide coming" .
But "there is a step between political responsibility and complicity in the crime of genocide. At no time did French politicians intend to participate in the genocide or to stimulate it", defends the deputy.
"The first persons responsible for the genocide, they are two who took the machetes and went to kill in particular half of my family", declares Mr. Berville, who was adopted by a Breton family in 1994.
"Emmanuel Macron wanted to shed light on this period" and the 14 historians led by Vincent Duclert "worked in complete independence", greeted the parliamentarian, who stressed that almost all the archives could be exploited.
Those "less important" of the National Assembly were not accessible, according to Mr. Berville.
This report is "an outcome and will also allow us to write a new page with Rwanda and Africa", according to this elected representative of the Côtes d'Armor.
© 2021 AFP