Commission clears France of complicity in Rwanda genocide

The report on France’s role in 1994’s Rwandan genocide is given by Historian and Commission chief, Vincent Duclert to French President Emmanuel Macron, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris (Ludovic Marin/AP)

A commission that spent nearly two years uncovering France’s role in 1994’s Rwandan genocide concluded that the country reacted too slowly in appreciating the extent of the horror that left over 800,000 dead but cleared it of complicity in the slaughter.

The report said that France bears “heavy and overwhelming responsibilities” in the drift that led to the killings, which principally claimed victims from Rwanda’s Tutsi ethnic minority.