Kagame meets former French president Sarkozy

President Paul Kagame today received in his office at Village Urugwiro former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is in Rwanda on a two-day private visit, the President’s Office has said.

Monday, January 15, 2018
President Kagame on Monday received former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in his office in Kigali. (Photo by Village Urugwiro)

President Paul Kagame today received in his office at Village Urugwiro former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is in Rwanda on a two-day private visit, the President’s Office has said. 

Sarkozy, who served as French president from 2007 to 2012 during which time he visited Rwanda – the only French leader to do so after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda – is also scheduled to visit Rwanda Development Board (RDB), the government’s agency in charge of coordinating investments in the country, according to a statement from Village Urugwiro.

During his visit to Rwanda as French president in February 2010, Sarkozy admitted his country’s "serious error of judgment” about the situation that prevailed in Rwanda in the lead up and during the Genocide which claimed the lives of more than a million people. 

Following the end of the Genocide, which was stopped by the Rwanda Patriotic Army that was then under the leadership of now-president Kagame, Rwanda and France have mostly been at odds and evidence has been piling up about the latter’s culpability, further ramping up the pressure on Paris to admit its role in the Genocide and help bring to justice Genocide fugitives on its soil.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw