After decades of wielding political, military and economic power in Africa, France is scaling back its presence on the continent as it faces strong resentment from many African countries. However, one country has become an exception: Rwanda.
While other African countries seek to reduce France’s influence, Rwanda is embracing France, celebrating French culture, language and food, despite its ties to Paris due to France’s role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. It’s been cold for decades. In return, French companies are expanding their investments in Rwanda.
The détente championed by Rwanda’s longtime leader Paul Kagame has won France a much-needed security partner in Africa and provided Rwanda with millions of dollars in development and trade funds. The warmer ties are also rare good news for French President Emmanuel Macron, who has faced a wave of outrage across Africa and was crushed by the far right in this month’s European Parliament elections.
“Kagame is our partner,” French State Minister Hervé Belleville said in an interview in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.
The relationship between the two countries has been marked by diplomatic rancor and animosity for decades. Mr. Kagame accused France, particularly the government of then-President François Mitterrand, of condoning the 1994 genocide in which Rwandan officials killed an estimated 800,000 people.
Relations between the two countries were severely strained in the early 2000s, with Rwanda abandoning French in classes and switching to English, expelling the French ambassador, closing French international schools and cultural centers, and blocking France’s national radio station.
But after Macron came to power, the situation began to change. In 2021, a report he commissioned concluded that while France did not participate in the genocide, it bore “grave and overwhelming” responsibility for it. Rwanda published its own report weeks later, accusing Paris of providing “unwavering support” to the genocidal government to maintain its influence.
Mr Macron visited Rwanda shortly after the report was released, kicking off a series of events to promote rapprochement between the two countries.
By mid-2021, France appointed a new ambassador to Rwanda. The French Development Agency has opened a new office in Kigali. France donated hundreds of thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccines during the epidemic.
French conglomerates have invested millions of dollars in real estate, technology, entertainment and tourism. Last month, leaders from more than 50 French companies attended the African CEO Forum in Kigali, French officials said. Some of them, including the head of Total Energies, met with Mr Kagame in person.
In Rwanda, French has been reintroduced into schools. Mr. Macron inaugurated the new French Cultural Center. Young people in Rwanda now dine in restaurants serving French cuisine. Rwandan artists and fashion designers perform and present their work in major French cultural institutions.
“Everywhere you look, French and France are everywhere,” said Mashauri Muhindo Memcan, a teacher in Kigali. A few years ago, he said, he was the school’s only French teacher, but now he leads a growing department of six French teachers.
For France, the new engagement with Rwanda reflects Macron’s efforts to find allies and business partners on a continent where rival countries such as China and Russia are vying for influence.
But French Minister Belleville said it was also aimed at engaging younger generations in conversations about the past to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past”. “We need to be vigilant,” he told a group of French and Rwandan students in Kigali on a recent afternoon, wearing a white shirt and dark tie, like Macron.
Despite warming ties, the two countries remain at odds.
France accuses Rwanda of backing rebels wreaking havoc in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, a claim Kigali has long denied.
Rwanda remains unhappy with the fact that France did not claim more responsibility for the genocide. These tensions surfaced during the 30th anniversary of the genocide in April, when Macron backed down in acknowledging France’s failure to stop the genocide.
But Rwanda and France have solidified defense cooperation even though French troops have been expelled from several African countries, including Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Despite its small size, Rwanda uses its military to exert influence internationally, particularly through peacekeeping missions. Federico Donelli, a professor of international relations at the University of Trieste who has written extensively about Rwanda’s military, said France has considered Rwanda a military threat due to wariness of another military intervention. Alternatives to deploying troops on African soil.
This is the case in Mozambique, where France supports the deployment of Rwandan troops to fight rebels in Cabo Delgado province. The area is home to a multi-billion dollar natural gas project owned by France’s TotalEnergies.
Mr Donelli said France was also pushing for Rwanda’s involvement in Mozambique in the EU. The group provided €20 million ($21.4 million) in funding for the Rwandan delegation.
“France sees Rwanda as the perfect partner for its new African agenda,” Mr Donelli added. “The political costs in Paris, both domestically and on the mainland, are low. Kigali will gain a good reputation and economic benefits.
In addition to security, France has increased development funding for the landlocked country. French development agencies have spent €500 million to create jobs and renovate health facilities. In April, the two countries signed a development partnership worth 400 million euros (approximately $429 million).
France is also paying for vocational training for thousands of Rwandan university students in subjects such as mechatronics, a hybrid field that combines mechanics and electronics.
On a recent morning, several French officials visited a French-funded and built college in Tumba, a town about 20 miles northwest of Kigali. Students there crowd into classrooms and laboratories studying industrial automation and developing robotic systems.
“Rwanda is willing to change, improve and even build systems that can benefit wider Africa,” said Arthur Germond, Rwanda country director of the French development agency who led the tour. “We want to help realize that vision.”
For some Rwandans, changing relationships herald new opportunities.
Over the years, as Rwanda moved away from French, comedian Hervé Kimenyi stopped performing in French and audiences dwindled. But as the relationship has improved, he is now setting up a comedy club that will feature stand-up comedy, poetry and music in French.
By doing so, he said, he hopes to reach out to older and younger Rwandans, as well as French-speaking students and professionals from elsewhere on the continent, mainly West Africa, who now call Rwanda home.
For Mr. Belleville, the French minister, strengthening ties with Rwanda requires working to address challenges facing both countries, such as climate change. But it also involves France taking proactive steps to confront its past, including trying genocide suspects who still live in France.
Belleville said this was the only way to make improvements in relations “irreversible” no matter who succeeds Macron in the next French election. “Words are good,” he said, “but actions are better.”
