President Macron Says France And Its Allies ‘Could Have Stopped’ The 1994 Rwanda Genocide

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks next to the visitor's book at the genocide memorial site at the capital Kigali, Rwanda, Thursday, May 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Muhuzi Olivier, File)

BY SYLVIE CORBET

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that France and its allies could have stopped the 1994 Rwanda genocide but lacked the will to do so, a strong declaration ahead of the African country’s 30th anniversary of the slaughter that left over 800,000 people dead.

Macron’s office said in a statement that the French president will release a video on social media on Sunday as Rwanda marks the solemn commemoration of the genocide.

In the video, Macron says that “France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, lacked the will to do so.”

In 2021 during a visit to the central African country, Macron acknowledged France’s “responsibility” in the genocide that left over 800,000 people dead, mainly ethnic Tutsis and the Hutus who tried to protect them.

He stopped short of an apology, but Rwandan President Paul Kagame signaled that a page had been turned in France-Rwanda ties, following a series of French efforts to repair ties between the two countries.

The Rwandan government has long accused France of “enabling” the genocide.

Since he was first elected in 2017, Macron notably commissioned a report about France’s role before and during the genocide and decided to open the country’s archives from this period to the public.

In Sunday’s video, Macron will recall that when the genocide started, “the international community had the means to know and to take actions” based on the knowledge about genocides that had been revealed by survivors of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, his office said.

Macron will reaffirm that “France stands by Rwanda and the Rwandan people, in memory of the one million children, women and men martyred because they were born Tutsi,” according to his office.

Macron’s office said France will be represented by Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné at the commemoration of the genocide scheduled on Sunday in Kigali, the French president himself being held back in France by World War II commemorations that day.

n recent years, France has also increased efforts to arrest genocide suspects and send them to trial.

A Rwandan doctor was sentenced in December by a Paris court to 24 years in prison in what was the sixth case related to the Rwandan genocide that came to court in France, all of them in the past decade.

France’s Public Schools Will Enforce A Dress Code Banning Robes Worn By Some Muslims, President Says

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

French President Emmanuel Macron listens to teachers during a visit to a vocational school in Orange, Southeastern France, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP)

PARIS (AP) — French students won’t get past the door if they show up for school wearing long robes, President Emmanuel Macron made clear Friday, saying authorities would be “intractable” in enforcing a new rule when classes resume next week.

French Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced at a news conference four days ago that robes worn mainly by Muslims, known as abayas for girls and women and khamis for boys and men, would be banned with the start of the new school year on Monday.

Macron addressed the dress code for the first publicly after visiting a professional school in the Vaucluse region of southern France

“We know there will be cases” of students testing the rule, the president said, including ones trying to “defy the republican system.” Macron said they would not be able to slip into class, stressing that “we will be intractable on the subject.”

The education minister described girls and boys wearing the robes in junior high and high school as “an infringement on secularism,” a foundational principle for France. He accused some students of using the traditional attire to try to destabilize schools.

The new rule has received inevitable criticism. Social media platforms have buzzed with critics saying the loose, body-covering garments do not constitute an ostentatious display of religion and should not be banned from classrooms.

The framework for the ban is a 2004 law aimed at preserving secularism in French public schools. The law prohibited Muslim headscarves but also applied to large Christian crosses, Jewish kippas and the large turbans worn by Sikhs.

It passed after months of furor and marathon parliamentary debates. Muslims claimed it stigmatized them. The law does not apply to university students.

Addressing how the new measure would be enforced, Macron said “specific personnel” would be sent to “sensitive” schools to help principals and teachers and to dialogue with students and families, if needed.

Attal said earlier that 14,000 educational personnel in leadership positions would be trained by the end of this year to deal with enforcement and other issues in upholding secularism, and 300,000 personnel would be trained by 2025.

Macron Says UN Refugee Agency Attacked, Decries Libya Camps

A migrants splashes water on his face as he disembarks with others from an Italian Guardia di Finanza finance police boat at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, southern Italy, early Tuesday, July 9, 2019. According to reports 53 migrants were rescued in the Sicilian Channel by an Italian Coast Guard patrol vessel, but six of them were immediately transferred to Lampedusa due to medical conditions. (Ciccio Ruta/ANSA via AP)

BY ELAINE GANLEY

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron called on Libyan authorities Monday to stop holding transiting refugees in detention camps and said buildings of the United Nations’ refugee agency in Libya were attacked earlier in the day.

Macron did not elaborate on the attack he said was carried out on buildings of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. He said Libya should end the “confinement” of refugees and house in safe places those who reach the North African country.

Libya has become a major conduit for African migrants and refugees hoping to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. An airstrike on a detention center near the Libyan capital killed more than 50 migrants and wounded dozens of others earlier this month.

Macron met with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and the director general of the International Organization for Migration on Monday, after European ministers in Paris tried to find agreement on dealing with Europe-bound migrants who use Libya as a stepping stone.

The European Union has spent hundreds of millions of euros to equip and train Libya’s coast guard and to improve the conditions of the detention centers. Under a deal with the EU, Libyan vessels apprehend refugees and migrants setting out from the coast and take them back.

Macron announced that eight countries had formally signed on to a French-German initiative to cooperate in a burden-sharing mechanism and 14 assented to it. Southern European countries like Italy and Greece have complained for years that they shoulder a disproportionate responsibility for arriving migrants.

“Europe isn’t a la carte when it comes to solidarity,” Macron said, with countries saying they don’t want a Europe that shares burdens but are in favor of unity “when it’s about receiving structural funds.”

Absent from the closed-door meeting of EU interior and foreign ministers was Italy’s populist, anti-migrant interior minister, Matteo Salvini. He tweeted strong disagreement Sunday with letting France and Germany determine the bloc’s refugee policy while nations like Italy are on the front line.

“We intend to make ourselves respected,” Salvini declared in another tweet.

Without naming Italy, Macron regretted the absence of some countries from the table, saying that “we gain nothing by non-cooperation.”

However, he reiterated the law of the sea by which boats must be able to enter the surest and closest port, which for vessels coming from Libya typically is Italy.

Salvini has barred private aid ships that rescue migrants from entering Italy’s ports, forcing NGOs to find another country willing to allow their rescue boats to dock and bartering among nations to divide up the migrants onboard.

U.N. High Commissioner Grandi said he was encouraged by the progress in finding a method for sharing the work of housing asylum-seekers and processing their applications.

Last month, Grandi and International Organization for Migration Director General Antonio Vitorino lamented that the EU had no predictable strategy for providing rescue boats with safe harbor and sharing newly arrived migrants.

The number of migrant crossings on the central Mediterranean route that leads to Italy has diminished drastically since 2015 and 2016.

“We no longer are living an arrival crisis .... We live a crisis of deaths,” Vitorino said.

According to the IOM, up to June 19, there were 2,252 arrivals in Italy and 1,151 in Malta, while at least 343 people died at sea.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas voiced hope earlier in the day that a solution was on the horizon.

“The haggling about emergency rescue in the Mediterranean must finally end,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said after the ministerial meeting. “It is really necessary that we manage to put together a coalition of those who are prepared to help, and I think we came a step closer to that today.”

The UNHCR and IOM chiefs joined Macron in stressing the need for rescue help from NGOs, which Italy has denounced, claiming they help traffickers.

On Sunday, the SOS Mediterranee, a French charity, partnering with Doctors Without Borders, announced it has returned to the sea with a new boat to save migrants, seven months after the flag was pulled from its original ship, Aquarius. The Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking is heading to the Mediterranean with a 31-member crew, the group said.

Salvini wasted no time in warning SOS Mediterranee that Italy was not about to bend on its policy of keeping rescue ships at bay, tweeting Monday, “if someone is thinking about helping smugglers or breaking laws, be careful because we won’t be standing still.”

The Aquarius, SOS Mediterranee’s original rescue ship, ended its operations last fall after Panama revoked its flag and Italian prosecutors ordered the vessel seized, accusing Doctors Without Borders of illegally disposing of tons of contaminated and medical waste. The organization says the Aquarius assisted 30,000 migrants since 2016.

Monday’s meeting follows a gathering of EU interior ministers on the issue of rescuing migrants last week in Helsinki, Finland. Salvini hailed progress there, saying other ministers shared Italy’s position of revamping Mediterranean search and rescue rules with the aim of preventing immigration abuse.

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This version has been corrected to show that Macron said Libya, not France, should provide security for vulnerable refugees.

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Frances D’Emilio in Rome and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.

French Investigators Raid Home Of Macron’s Ex-Bodyguard

In this Wednesday, April 26, 2017 file photo, Emmanuel Macron, right, is flanked by his bodyguard, Alexandre Benalla, left, outside the Whirlpool home appliance factory, in Amiens, northern France. Investigators have detained for questioning on Friday, July 20, 2018 one of President Emmanuel Macron’s top security aides caught on camera beating a protester in May, a turn of events now evolving into a major political crisis for the president. The presidential Elysee Palace said it is taking steps to fire Alexandre Benalla, who was identified earlier this week by the newspaper Le Monde for beating a young protester during May Day protests while wearing a police helmet (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

PARIS (AP) — French investigators on Saturday raided the house of one of French President Emmanuel Macron’s former top security aides, a man who was caught on camera beating a young protester in May.

Alexandre Benalla’s involvement in the beating and questions about the government’s handling of the affair is turning into Macron’s biggest political crisis since he took office last year.

The presidential Elysee Palace fired bodyguard Benalla a day before police raided his home Saturday morning in the Parisian suburb of Issy-Les-Moulineaux, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Benalla was identified earlier this week by the Le Monde newspaper for beating a young protester during May Day protests while wearing a police helmet. He and a second man are facing potential charges and are in police custody until Sunday.

Regular parliamentary work has been paralyzed for two days with questions about why it took 2 1/2 months to inform judicial officials and why Benalla stayed in his post during that time. Questions over whether there was an official cover-up of his actions have also been raised, and whether Elysee employees have a measure of impunity not granted to others.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb will face questions from parliament next week to see if the government failed to properly discipline Benalla.

Despite his official change to a desk job, Benalla was seen this month on the ground with police at several high-profile events, including the return home Monday of France’s soccer World Cup-winning team, an event attended by hundreds of thousands.

The belated referral of the issue to judicial authorities and what was widely viewed as insufficient action at the time by the Elysee Palace has triggered a firestorm from the opposition.

Macron has continued to keep a low profile and has, thus far, not spoken about the events.

Step 2 For France's New President: Consolidating Power

France's President Emmanuel Macron, left, and his wife Brigitte stand on the door step after a meeting with the President of Guatemala Jimmy Morales, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Thursday, June 8, 2017.

PARIS (AP, JUNE 9, 2017) — Winning the French presidency was step one for Emmanuel Macron. Step two is nailing down the parliamentary majority France's youngest-ever president needs to be effective. That happens in legislative elections that promise a monumental shake-up of the National Assembly and the consolidation of Macron's grip on France's levers of power.

Not only is the two-round vote, this Sunday and next, expected to install hundreds of new faces in the 577-seat lower house, but many will likely be first-time lawmakers, making good on Macron's campaign promises to take a broom to established, old-style politics.

Half of the candidates for Macron's fledgling Republic on the Move! party have, like him, never previously held elected office. They include an award-winning mathematician, a former female bullfighter and the ex-head of an elite French police unit that took down an Islamic State cell, among others.

With pollsters projecting a possibly dominant majority for Macron's camp, the election could add real clout to the measured and studied air of authority the 39-year-old has cultivated in his presidential role since the very first minutes of his May 7 victory.

Much of Macron's early muscle-flexing has been symbolic, most notably his knuckle-whitening handshake with U.S. President Donald Trump — aimed, the French leader later said, at showing that he is no pushover.

But a large, compliant majority in parliament would arm Macron with the actual power to quickly start legislating and launch his promised program of remedies for the persistent, chronic unemployment and other economic difficulties that have sapped France's weight in Europe. He intends to speedily reform France's labor codes, aiming to create work by injecting greater flexibility into the labor market and by boosting job-training.

Battered by the electorate that gave Macron a comfortable winning margin over far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the presidential vote, his weakened political rivals fear that another surge of support for the president's candidates in the legislative ballot could make him almost untouchable and limit their tools and abilities to keep his ambitions and legislative program in check.

Political scientist Dominique Moisi says the legislative election is a "decisive piece" in the consolidation of Macron's presidency. When the former banker and economy minister launched his wild-card bid for the presidential Elysee Palace in 2016, challenging the monopoly on power of France's established parties on the left and right, his chances of winning the succession of presidential and legislative votes looked remote-to-nil. Now, Macron's gamble is close to paying out in full, and the mainstream parties are in disarray.

"He's on course to be a new De Gaulle if he makes the reforms he wants to," Moisi said, referring to the hugely respected founding father of modern France, wartime hero Gen. Charles de Gaulle. "There is a risk that he will have too much authority given the fact that he has some sort of authoritarian personality in him. But that is what France needs right now."

For Macron's rivals, the election is their last best chance to clip his wings for the next five years until the next electoral cycle. Le Pen is hoping the record support for her National Front in the presidential vote will translate into more seats in parliament than the two held by the party in the last legislature. Similarly, far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon also is banking that his strong fourth place in the presidential ballot will help secure legislative seats for himself and his candidates.

The left and right mainstream parties, the Socialists and conservative Republicans, are hoping to limit their losses, having been spectacularly sanctioned by voters in the presidential vote. For the first time, neither of them made the decisive May runoff vote that was contested between Macron and Le Pen.

To win in the first round Sunday, candidates must win an absolute majority of votes cast and the support of at least 25 percent of registered voters in their constituency. Otherwise, the contest moves to the second-round vote the following Sunday.