This is the story of a communications faux pas that became a political misstep. On Sunday, April 7, as Rwanda marked the 30th anniversary of the Tutsi genocide, a pre-recorded video by Emmanuel Macron muddied the commemorative message on France's role in the massacre of at least 800,000 people in a hundred days in 1994. "I think I said it all on May 27, 2021, when I was with you. I have no word to add, no word to subtract from what I said to you that day," said the president in his message, flanked by the French, European and Rwandan flags, in reference to his historic speech in Kigali three years ago.
But the Elysée had gone one step further three days earlier. In a message sent to journalists, it announced that the president "[was] keen to express himself on Sunday in a video." "The president will recall that when the phase of total extermination of the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and to act (...) and that France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will to do so," continued the message from the Elysée, which specified to the press that "the elements [in the release] can be used as of now."
The French president's position isn't new: It was already contained in Macron's 2021 speech during his visit to the Gisozi Memorial in Rwanda. For the first time, France, which in 1994 was a historic ally of the genocidal regime, acknowledged its "overwhelming responsibility in a chain of events that led to the worst," a declaration of repentance that put an end to 25 years of severed diplomatic ties between the two countries.
But the video's release caused quite a stir, as every word about the painful history of the Tutsi genocide is always scrutinized, weighed and analyzed both in Paris and Kigali. Experts on the subject, such as historian Vincent Duclert, author of the report that preceded the French-Rwandan reconciliation, saw in the language that leaked on Thursday a new "step forward." Enough to forgive Macron's absence in Kigali on Sunday. Officially due to "a diary clash" caused by the ceremony to pay tribute to the French resistance fighters of the Plateau des Glières in the French Alps during the Second World War, which tookplace on the same day, it was interpreted as a sign of difficulties in the recent resumption of relations between the two countries, notably because of Rwanda's role in the destabilization of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
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