Macron to unveil Rwanda genocide memorial in France's reckoning with past

President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday will unveil a monument to victims of the Rwanda genocide in the presence of Paul Kagame, the leader of the east African nation, as France acknowledges its role in one of the 20th century's worst atrocities.

Macron has recognised France's "responsibility", saying Paris and its Western and African allies did not have the will to halt the slaughter in 1994 of an estimated 800,000 people -- mostly ethnic Tutsis -- but has stopped short of issuing a formal apology.

The monument on the banks of the Seine river in the heart of Paris is a new step in France's efforts to take responsibility for its past policies and re-engage with Africa.

The monument dubbed "L'Archive" ("The Archive") is designed by Grada Kilomba, a Berlin-based Portuguese artist.

It consists of two black brass steles and bears an engraved tribute to the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children massacred between April and July 1994.

"Here, like an archive, rest the voices and words, the memories and experiences, the feelings and hopes of the victims and the survivors," it reads.

One survivor, Jeanne Uwimbabazi, was to speak at the ceremony, along with Macron and Kagame.

The assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, when his plane was shot down over Kigali, triggered a rampage by Hutu extremists.

At the time, the France had been a long-standing backer of Rwanda's Hutu-dominated government, leading to decades of tensions between the two countries including a break in diplomatic ties between 2006 and 2009.

In a speech in Kigali in 2021, Macron acknowledged France's failure to heed warnings of the massacres.

A historical commission set up by Macron and led by historian Vincent Duclert concluded in 2021 that there had been a "failure" on the part of France under President Francois Mitterrand, while adding there was no evidence Paris was complicit in the killings.

Duclert said the unveiling of the monument was a "powerful" step.

"The genocide against the Tutsi is now fully part of France's public history," he said.

Marcel Kabanda, president of the Ibuka France genocide survivor association, praised France's efforts to remember Rwanda's dead and assume its share of responsibility.

"We have been waiting for this for more than 30 years," Kabanda told AFP.

"It is like oxygen, because civil society has long carried this struggle alone, and we finally feel understood and supported."

The French courts, acting on the principle of universal jurisdiction to try the most serious crimes committed outside French territory, have convicted several Rwandans for their part in the massacre.

In May, France's judiciary ordered the resumption of an almost two-decade investigation into accusations that Habyarimana's widow who has lived in France since 1998, was involved in the genocide.