France, Rwanda have 'good basis' to create relationship: Kagame

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Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Monday that Rwanda and France have a "good basis" to create a relationship after a landmark report acknowledged French responsibility over the 1994 genocide.

"I think France and Rwanda have a chance now and a good basis on which to create a good relationship as the case should have been," Kagame told journalists from the France 24 television channel and RFI radio.

"We are in the process of normalisation," he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron moved to repair ties with Rwanda by commissioning a report by historians into the role of French troops in the genocide, in which around 800,000 people were killed.

It concluded in March that France had been "blind" to preparations for the massacres of members of the Tutsi ethnic group by the Hutu regime, which was backed by France.

Kagame has in the past accused France of "participating" in the genocide, but he said he accepted the findings of the French commission that Paris was not complicit in the killings.

"It's not up to me to conclude to say this is what they should have said," Kagame said. "It is something that I can accomodate."

He also welcomed the arrest by French police in May last year of Felicien Kabuga, who is suspected of financing the genocide.

"I think it's a good start. Maybe more could be done," he said, adding that there were "still a number of genocide suspects in France whose cases have not been handled the way they should."