# Duclert Report (2021)

URL: https://allhistories.com/rwanda/timeline/2021-duclert-report
Location: Paris, France
Themes: main-event

France under President François Mitterrand had been the Habyarimana regime's closest ally, sending troops in 1990–93 to help resist the RPF, training the Rwandan army and maintaining contacts with leading figures of the interim government during the genocide. Rwanda accused France of complicity, while France's 1998 parliamentary inquiry found only errors of judgement. In 2019 President Emmanuel Macron created a commission of historians under Vincent Duclert with access to French state archives. The commission's report, delivered to Macron on 26 March 2021, ran to about 1,200 pages. It found that France had been blind to the preparation of the genocide because of Mitterrand's personal attachment to Habyarimana and a colonial, ethnic reading of Rwandan politics, and that it bore "heavy and overwhelming responsibilities". It stopped short of finding that France had been complicit in the killings. The Rwandan government welcomed the report and in April 2021 published its own study, the Muse report, which went further and argued that France had made the genocide foreseeable. The Duclert report marked a turning point in Franco-Rwandan relations, opening the way to Macron's visit to Kigali in May 2021 and the appointment of the first French ambassador to Rwanda since 2015. At this point in the timeline (26 March 2021), the President of Rwanda was Paul Kagame (18 August 2017 – 11 August 2024). Government: the Prime Minister of Rwanda was Édouard Ngirente (30 August 2017 – 13 August 2024).

## Why it matters
The report was France's most significant official acknowledgement of its role in the events leading to the genocide.

Ruler at the Time: [Paul Kagame](https://allhistories.com/rwanda/rulers/paul-kagame)

Prime Minister of Rwanda: Édouard Ngirente (PSD)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — France–Rwanda relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France%E2%80%93Rwanda_relations)
- [French Wikipedia — Commission Duclert](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Duclert)
- [Élysée — Remise du rapport de la Commission de recherche sur les archives françaises relatives au Rwanda](https://www.elysee.fr/)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — France Rwanda genocide report](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=France+Rwanda+genocide+report)
- [Wikipedia — The Contemporary Republic (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda)