The inclusion of a text by Paul Kagame, current President of Rwanda and, in 1994, commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) troops that ended the Tutsi genocide, in the baccalaureate exam is a new development in French national education. However, the answer key proposed here (quote field), emphasizing that "
the violence committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front has often been concealed, the truth has been distorted," opens the door to all sorts of negationist theories.
The first theory, according to which Paul Kagame had President Habyarimana's plane shot down, is still widespread. It was contradicted by the dismissal of the charges against the Rwandans by Judge Bruguière, but it is often stated that it was dismissed "
due to insufficient evidence." The French justice system refused to follow
the DGSE's accusation against Hutu soldiers in the Rwandan army supported by France during the genocide.
The double genocide theory asserts that the RPF killed as many, if not more, Hutu. It is clear that RPF soldiers eliminated many FAR soldiers and militiamen. That they executed unarmed civilians is true in rare cases, such as the execution of three bishops and ten priests in Kabgayi on June 9, 1994. There have been cases of revenge by RPF soldiers who were harshly punished
as here in 1996. The death penalty in Rwanda was abolished in 2007. Given the state of the country, particularly the almost complete disappearance of the judicial system, the record of the gacaca is remarkable, especially when compared to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, which left most of the crimes committed by the apartheid regime untried.
Finally, a third theory, dear to the perpetrators of the genocide and the French leaders of the time, such as General Quesnot's vituperations
against Tutsiland, is still current. Accusing the Tutsi of wanting to dominate the Great Lakes region, it attributes to the current Rwandan government the plan to seize the riches of neighboring Congo. It ignores France's refusal to arrest the perpetrators of the genocide, the protection of their escape to Congo (then Zaire) by Operation Turquoise, all the attacks against Rwanda perpetrated by the genocidaires from Congo and the pogroms in that country against the Rwandophone or Banyamulenge populations.