When a smattering of leaders gather this weekend in Kigali to mark the 25th anniversary of Rwanda’s genocide, there will be one conspicuous absence: French President Emmanuel Macron.
Several African leaders and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel are expected at events commemorating the 1994 massacre of an estimated 800,000 Rwandans, mostly minority Tutsis were slain in a dark chapter of Africa’s post-colonial history.
Macron too was invited, a move which had been hailed as sign of a fresh start in relations after two decades of turmoil over Rwanda’s claims that France was complicit in the genocide.
Forty-one-year-old Macron has presented himself as the face of a new generation of French politician unburdened by the country’s murky past in Africa. Read more