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Tuesday December 17, 2024

France grants researcher access to ex-president´s Rwanda archives

By AFP
June 13, 2020

PARIS: France´s top administrative court ruled Friday that a researcher could consult former president Francois Mitterrand´s archives on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, ending a long legal battle over access. The State Council said the documents would allow the researcher, Francois Graner, “to shed light on a debate that is a matter of public interest”. Graner first requested access in 2015, the year the government declassified archives on Rwanda for the period 1990-95. But the researcher´s request was refused, prompting him to file legal challenges that have failed until to now with courts upholding a law protecting presidential archives for 25 years after a leader´s death. In the case of Mitterrrand, who died in 1996, they would have become available only in 2021. Many in Rwanda have accused Mitterand´s government of supporting the Hutu regime that carried out most of the killings of some 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis.