France and the Rwandan genocide

The role of France in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi has been the subject of sustained controversy and diplomatic tension between France and Rwanda. During the civil war that preceded the genocide, France supported the Hutu-led government of President Juvénal Habyarimana against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed largely of Tutsi exiles that launched an invasion from Uganda in 1990. France provided arms and military training to the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, which were among the government's primary means of operationalizing the genocide following the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6, 1994.

Following the assassination of Presidents Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi on 6 April 1994, mass killings of Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutu began. In June 1994, near the end of the approximately 100-day genocide, France launched Opération Turquoise, a United Nations–mandated intervention that established a humanitarian zone in southwestern Rwanda. While French authorities described the mission as an effort to protect civilians, critics have argued that the zone also enabled some perpetrators of the genocide to flee into neighboring Zaire as the RPF advanced. The facts related to the French role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi have formed the focus of ongoing debate, and diplomatic relations between France and Rwanda have frequently been strained since 1994.

As a result of these developments and ongoing tensions between the two governments, relations between Rwanda and France deteriorated after 1994. Following a gradual rift with the Kagame-led government, the Rwanda government closed French schools and cultural institutions, although some were later reopened. It also changed the primary language of instruction in schools from French to English and applied to join the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming one of only two members that were not former British colonies.