France “bears significant responsibility” for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 because it remained “unwavering in its support” of its allies even though officials knew the slaughter was being prepared, a report commissioned by Kigali claims, reports The Guardian.
The accusation is the latest in the continuing dispute between Paris and the small east-African country over the role played there by France before and during the mass killings.
France has long been accused of not doing enough to halt the genocide.
The 600-page report, by the US law firm Levy Firestone Muse, labels France a “collaborator” of the extremist Hutu regime that orchestrated the murders of about 800,000 people, mainly from the Tutsi minority.
The report, which drew on millions of pages of documents and interviews with more than 250 witnesses, found no evidence that French officials or personnel had directly participated in the killing of Tutsis.
It follows the publication last month of a separate inquiry into the same events commissioned by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.