France's former foreign affairs minister Bernard Kouchner has told RFI that he denies Rwandan President Paul Kagame's charge of French "direct participation" in the 1994 genocide.
But Rwanda's foreign minister called on Paris to face up to the "difficult truth" ahead of Monday's cermonies marking the 20th anniversary of the atrocities.
"You can accuse France of a lot when it comes to political errors that have been made, on they way things happened ... but 'direct participation'? I don't think so," Kouchner, who as foreign minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy started a thaw in relations between the two countries, said in an interview with RFI in Kigali.
In an interview published ahead of the commemoration, Kagame renewed longstanding accusations that French forces played an active role in the slaughter that preceded his Rwandan Patriotic Front coming to power.
France responded by calling off Justice Minister Christiane Taubira's participation in the ceremonies.
On Sunday Rwanda's Foreign Affairs Minister Mushikiwabo declared it "impossible for our two countries to move forward if the condition is that Rwanda has to forget its history in order to get along with France".
"For our two countries to really start getting along, we will have to face the truth, the truth is difficult, the truth of being close to anybody who is associated with genocide understandably is a very difficult truth to accept," she told reporters.
The French boycott was an "overreaction", she said.
Read more of this report from RFI.
See also: France pulls out of Rwanda genocide commemorations