Role of France in the Rwandan genocide France made "mistakes" during the genocide, although, according to a BBC report, he "stopped short of offering a full apology". In April 2016, 2017 conservative presidential candidate, Alain Juppé, who was also French foreign affairs minister during the 1994 genocide tweeted "implicating France in the Rwandan genocide is a disgrace and a historical distortion.” Role of France in the Rwandan genocide The role of France in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has been a source of controversy and debate both within and beyond France and Rwanda. France actively supported the Hutu-led government of Juvénal Habyarimana against the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic
Hutu of Rwandan national unity, but has been criticized as an attempt at historical revisionism. Still others suggest that the two groups are related but not identical, and that differences between them were exacerbated by Europeans, or by a gradual, natural split, as those who owned cattle became known as Tutsi and those who did not became Hutu. Mahmood Mamdani states that the Belgian colonial power designated people as Tutsi or Hutu on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements and church records. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the Hutu and Tutsi are really separate groups or not;