Paris (AFP)
François Mitterrand and "the people of the Elysee Palace did not want to see anything" during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, former Minister Bernard Kouchner told AFP, who welcomes the Duclert report submitted on Friday on French responsibility.
This report "brings a little truth to an immense political fault" in France 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 ".
"People of the Elysée", "General Quesnot" (chief of staff in particular), "General Huchon" (then colonel and deputy to General Quesnot) or "Hubert Védrine", then secretary general of the Elysée , 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 ex-Tutsi rebellion of the RPF.
"Knowing what was going on was easy".
"The blindness" described in the report, is "a good word. They (the French power) had all the means to learn about what was happening. They did not do it", accuses- he.
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