Survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda have, among others, told The New Times that they are ‘eager’ to hear what visiting French President Emmanuel Macron will say when he delivers his speech in Kigali. Survivors hope his visit will emphatically make a statement that especially curtails genocide fugitives and deniers back in France. Macron arrived in Kigali earlier on Thursday morning for a two-day official visit that ends Friday. Speaking from Brussels, Belgium, Céline Bucyana said: What is important for us is that they hand over the Genocide suspects living in France.” They should bring them to book or send them to Kigali for trial. France is home to at least 47 indicted Genocide suspects and hundreds of genocide deniers and revisionists. During his stay in the country, Macron is visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial - the final resting place for more than 250,000 victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi - to lay a wreath and honour Genocide victims. Egide Mutabazi, 45, another survivor who lives in Ngoma District, said: I am waiting with excitement for the speech of the president of France on his visit at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. I hope it should be a speech that honors the victims of the genocide and comforts the survivors. In addition, I hope, it will be a speech which stops the courage of genocidaires and genocide negationists, especially those residing peacefully in France. Last week, Yolande Mukagasana, a Genocide survivor and president of the Yolande Mukagasana Foundation whose objectives include fighting against denial and revisionism of the 1994 Genocide, said Macrons visit is one more step in his commitment to sincere relations between France and Rwanda. Mukagasana welcomed the French President to Rwanda, and said dialogue is necessary to settle the accounts between our two countries. She said: We cannot erase history. But together we can write a new page for the future in mutual sincerity and respect, because Rwanda has looked to the future. This is the new Rwanda. We cannot forget what the French authorities were like at the time during the war of liberation and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, even if it is the continuity of the State. French historian Vincent Duclert in April officially handed over a report commissioned in 2019 by Macron to probe the then French government role in the 1994 Genocide. The Duclert Commissions 1,200-page report, among others, concludes that France bears heavy and overwhelming responsibilities over the 1994 Genocide but makes no mention of any evidence of French complicity.
