Opening of a French -speaking cultural center in Kigali, return of an ambassador and AFD, increased diplomatic dialogue … Relations between the two countries have been considerably strengthened.
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It has become the most symbolic and visible element in the warming of relations between France and Rwanda. Inaugurated by Emmanuel Macron during his trip to Kigali, on May 27, 2021, the new French -speaking cultural center of the Rwandan capital began its activities in October, seven years after the closure of the former French institute in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between the two country. Since then, he has received around 30,000 visitors for dozens of shows. Representing an investment of 650,000 euros, the building also has classrooms where French is taught. “Thousand five hundred people signed up for French courses and exams in 2021. There was therefore a high demand, to which we can now meet,” says Johan-Hilel Hamel, director of the establishment.
On the hills of Kigali as in speeches, France operated in a year a very noticed return. On May 27, 2021 at the Gisozi Memorial, in Kigali, Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech in which he recognized a “overwhelming responsibility” of France “in a gear that led to the worst”, the massacre of 800,000 Tutsi in the spring of 1994 . Two months after the publication of the report established by a commission of historians led by Vincent Duclert on the role of Paris in this “endless eclipse of humanity”, the visit of the French president came to seal the normalization of relations between the two countries and put an end to almost a quarter of a century of tensions.
In the summer of 2021, Antoine Anfré was appointed French ambassador to Kigali, while the position had been vacant since 2015. A technical assistant of Expertise France, a subsidiary of the French Development Agency (AFD), has also just settled in the Ministry of Education in order to support a program to strengthen French teaching in schools, funded up to 5 million euros by AFD. She is one of the agency’s flagship projects in this country she left in 1994 and where she reopened an office in March. It will be closely followed by Totalenergies, which is also preparing to open a representation. As for the Vivendi Africa group, it has also gradually set up there in the last two years, with a leisure complex and the launch of an optical fiber service in Kigali.
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