Rwandan President Paul Kagame praised the new French report on France's role in the 1994 genocide and hailed Paris' efforts to move forward with understanding of what happened 27 years ago, AP reported.

“We welcome this (report),” Kagame said. “Mitterrand knew that a genocide against the Tutsis was being planned by their allies in Rwanda” but continued “supporting them because he believed this was necessary for France’s geopolitical position.” 

Rwandans “were just pawns in geopolitical games,” charged Kagame.

The President of Rwanda commented for the first time on the genocide report published in March. A 2019 report by President Emmanuel Macron concluded that the French authorities overlooked the preparations for the assassinations because they supported the brutal government of then Rwandan leaders and then became too slow to grasp the scale of the killings.

Kagame's comments are important because they suggest an apparent detente between Rwanda and France, which opens its genocide-era archives to the public for the first time this week. Macron's decisions to order a report on France's role and open the archives to the public are part of his efforts to more fully counter France's role in the genocide and improve relations with Rwanda.

About 8,000 documents, which the commission studied over two years, including some that were previously classified, will be made available to the general public starting Wednesday.