France ‘played no role in genocide’

PARIS: The French prosecutor’s department said yesterday there were no grounds to pursue legal claims that France bore responsibility for enabling the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Rwanda last month published a report in which it said that France was aware that genocide was being prepared in Rwanda ahead of the killings. France’s top prosecutor, Remy Heitz, said that investigations carried out by French authorities could not prove any complicity by French troops in the killings which were orchestrated by the Hutu-led government and left 800 000 dead.

Critics of France’s role have said that then French President Francois Mitterrand failed to prevent the massacres or even supported the Hutu-led government.