Rwanda formally accused senior French officials on Tuesday of involvement in its 1994 genocide and called for them to be put on trial. Among those named in a report by a Rwandan investigation commission were former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and late President Francois Mitterrand.
Kigali has previously accused Paris of covering up its role in training troops and militia who carried out massacres that killed some 800,000 people, and of propping up the ethnic Hutu leaders who orchestrated the slaughter. France denies that and says its forces helped protect people during a UN-sanctioned mission in Rwanda at the time.
The latest allegations from Kigali came on Tuesday with the publication of the report by an independent Rwandan commission set up to investigate France's role in the bloodshed. "The French support was of a political, military, diplomatic and logistic nature," the report said.
"Considering the gravity of the alleged facts, the Rwandan government asks competent authorities to undertake all necessary actions to bring the accused French political and military leaders to answer for their acts before justice." Attached to the report was a list of 33 accused French political and military officials.
French officials were not immediately available to comment. Rwandan President Paul Kagame cut ties with France in November 2006 in protest at a French judge's call for him to stand trial over the death of his predecessor in April 1994 - an event widely seen as unleashing the genocide. But relations between Paris and the former rebel commander had improved in recent months.
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