“I have nothing to add or take away from what I said,” Macron added in the pre-recorded video broadcast on Sunday about the “very important and very cruel moment” in Rwanda’s history.
In 1994, extremists from the Hutu ethnic group launched a killing spree against minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus, killing about 800,000 people in the landlocked East African country.
A 2021 report, led by French historians, concluded that France bore “heavy and overwhelming responsibility” for what happened, and that it was “blind” to preparations for the genocide. Paris, under President François Mitterrand, supported the Hutu leaders of the time.
Macron's words do not live up to what the French presidency briefed journalists last week regarding the broad outlines of the upcoming letter to Rwanda. In remarks seen by Politico, Macron was expected to go a step further in acknowledging France's failure to stop the genocide.
The statement added: “The head of state will remind everyone that… the international community had the means to know and act… and that France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will to do so.” He said.
A press official at the Elysee Palace told Politico on Monday that there had been a “mistake in the communications team.”