"I come to recognize our responsibilities".
Thursday, May 27, in the Rwandan capital, President Emmanuel Macron delivers a historic speech, officially recognizing for the first time the role of France in the 1994 genocide, which left some 800,000 dead, mainly from the Tutsi minority.
This official visit, aimed at turning the page on the persistent tensions between France and Rwanda around this tragic chapter in history, is part of a broader policy of the President of the Republic, put in place at the start of the five-year term. , to "look history in the face".
A perilous exercise which arouses both admiration and sharp criticism.
>> Emmanuel Macron's visit to Rwanda: "A big turning point with a taste of unfinished business"
Long-term work
If Emmanuel Macron's speech was very favorably received in Rwanda, the nature of his remarks will have aroused little surprise. For several years, the French president has worked hard to restore relations between the two countries. On May 24, 2018, he receives Paul Kagame in Paris and promises that work will be carried out on the French archives linked to the genocide in Rwanda. A year later, he fulfilled his promise with the establishment of the Duclert commission which concluded, in its report submitted to the president on March 6, that the French authorities had heavy responsibilities, while excluding the notion of complicity. The Rwandan president then hails a “big step forward”. In the meantime, France has decreed a day of commemoration of the genocide of the Tutsis, on May 7. Finally, in April,Emmanuel Macron allows the declassification of French archives on the genocide.
>> Paul Kagame: "The Duclert report on the 1994 genocide is a big step forward"
For Jean Claude Félix-Tchicaya, researcher at the Institute of Prospective and Security in Europe (IPSE), by recognizing today the role of France, the French president completes a historic turning point: “With this speech Emmanuel Macron is placed in man of the 21st century (…) He makes a leap forward to France, Africa and Rwanda ”.
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“Proactive” approach
This policy of recognition, Emmanuel Macron is leading it on many fronts.
Visiting Ouagadougou on November 28, 2017, the president undertakes to return the African heritage stolen during the colonial conquest.
In 2020, France formalizes the restitution of 26 works in Benin as well as a historic saber in Senegal.
Another major axis of this policy, colonization. In 2017, while he was only a candidate, Emmanuel Macron, visiting Algeria, described colonization as a “crime against humanity”. "It is part of this past that we must face in the face by also apologizing to those to whom we have committed these acts", he said then. Apologies which will not be pronounced in the end, the Elysee preferring “symbolic acts”, according to the conclusions of the report on the memory of colonization and the Algerian war requested by Emmanuel Macron from the historian Benjamin Stora. "The excuse is not the central question, what counts are the concrete acts, such as the official recognition of crimes or the declassification of archives" judges the latter, contacted by France 24.
“Other presidents like Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy or François Hollande have of course expressed themselves on colonization, but Emmanuel Macron has stepped up actions, continues the historian.
He recognized the responsibility of France in the disappearance of Maurice Audin, he recognized the assassination of lawyer Ali Boumendjel and even had a wreath laid in the name of France in Sétif, on the occasion of the commemorations of the massacres of May 8, 1945. Even if there is still much to do, it must be recognized that no French president had done this before him.
His actions show that he is not a prisoner of this time and is moving forward in a proactive manner. ”
“Racialist” controversy
If it is considered courageous by some, the recognition policy of Emmanuel Macron is far from unanimous. On April 18, during an interview with the American channel CBS, the president addresses the issue of racism which “causes a lot of tension” in France and underlines the importance of a “peaceful and open dialogue to understand the causes and in a way deconstruct our own history ”. A declaration which then arouses strong reactions, such as that of Xavier Bertrand, of the Republicans, who denounces a vision “unfair with regard to what France is” and which goes against “national unity”.
On the right, some detractors of the president accuse him of lending a flank to excessive repentance and of giving in to a “racialist” current.
A sterile debate according to Benjamin Stora: “It is a political trap set by the extreme right.
The question of racism is of course important, but above all it is a question of looking at the past in the face.
Emmanuel Macron wants to join in the lineage of General De Gaulle who considered that decolonization is the greatness of France.
What he seeks is the reconquest of international prestige ”analyzes the author of“ France-Algeria, painful passions. ”
Insufficient commitment?
Attacked by part of the right, the actions of Emmanuel Macron are also considered insufficient by some on the left.
Her lack of speech on May 10, National Day for the Remembrance of the Trafficking, thus aroused the annoyance of Christiane Taubira, former Minister of Justice and initiator of the law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity.
“It is still edifying to note that the President of the Republic has found nothing to say on more than two centuries of the history of France, whereas five days ago he was making scales on Napoleon Bonaparte” , she said then.
>> Commemoration of the victims of slavery: the Taubira law, 20 years later
Finally, the issue of apologies and reparations continues to be debated.
On May 8, as Algeria commemorates its first “National Day of Remembrance”, the government said it was still awaiting “repentance” from France and “fair compensation”.
Asked during his visit to Kigali about any apologies to Rwanda, the French president judged that the term was “not appropriate”, preferring to “give” recognition of France's responsibility. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, for his part, hailed a speech of "immense courage" which has "more value than an apology".
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