Honoring and Remembering

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France will erect a memorial in honor of the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a decision that comes as the African nation commemorates the 29th anniversary of the massacre, Radio France Internationale reported Saturday.

French officials said the monument will be built on Paris’ Left Bank, across the river from a memorial to the victims of the mass killings of Armenians during World War I.

The presidency said the idea behind the monument is for France “to pay its visible and permanent respects to the memory of the victims.”

The decision comes around two years after President Emmanuel Macron recognized France’s role in the killing of 800,000 mostly Rwandan Tutsis by Hutu militias between April and July 1994.

For decades, Rwanda had accused France, which had close ties with the ethnic Hutu government at the time, of complicity in the mass killings.

In 2021, a commission appointed by Macron released a report, saying that France had been “blind” to preparations for the genocide.

The commission noted that France bears the burden of “heavy and damning responsibilities” in the Rwandan genocide but was not complicit in the slaughter, the Guardian wrote in 2021.

Marcel Kabanda, president of the Ibuka France genocide survivor association, hailed the planned memorial, noting that the decision marks a sign that France “recognizes its history.”

“It’s a gesture to appease memories between France and Rwanda, and to appease the hearts of survivors of the genocide,” he added.