ONE of the most controversial episodes in France’s recent history is to come under legal scrutiny after a judge opened a formal inquiry into allegations that the French Army conspired in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The move, which will renew debate over the actions of François Mitterrand, France’s late President, causes embarrassment to Paris at a time when it is struggling to maintain its influence in Africa.

Despite attempts by the French Defence Ministry to block the case, Jacques Baillet, the prosecutor at the army tribunal, has begun an investigation into the role of France's troops during the massacres.

An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the violence that followed the death of Juvenal Habyarimana, then the Rwandan President, in an aircraft crash. The majority of the victims were Tutsis, slaughtered by the rival Hutu tribe. The 2,500-strong French peacekeeping force sent to Rwanda by M Mitterrand is accused not only of failing to stop the genocide, but of actively participating in it.

The accusations were contained in a lawsuit filed by six survivors who said that they had witnessed atrocities committed with the complicity of the French Army. M Baillet rejected four of the plaintiffs on the ground that they had not suffered personally.

Although Michèle Alliot-Marie, the French Defence Minister, described the claims as outlandish, the prosecutor decided that two witnesses were sufficiently credible to warrant an inquiry.

One is Auréa Mukakalisa, who was raped by Hutu militia in a refugee camp set up and controlled by the French Army. “The Hutu militiamen entered the camp and designated the Tutsis, who were forced to leave the camp by French soldiers,” Miss Mukakalisa, who was 27 at the time, said. “I saw the militia kill the Tutsis who had left the camp. I saw French soldiers themselves kill Tutsis using knives.” Her brother, Felicien, was one of the victims at the Murambi camp. His body has never been found.

The second witness, Innocent Gisanura, who was 14 at the time, was among thousands of Tutsis who fled into the Biserero forests in the hope of escaping the violence. “We were attacked and chased by militiamen,” he said in his statement. “French soldiers watched what happened from their vehicles without doing anything.”

The claims have revived the debate over France’s ambition to retain influence in Africa — an ambition that shaped much of M Mitterrand’s foreign policy. Under his presidency, France armed and trained President Habyarimana’s forces, which critics say formed the backbone of the Hutu militia during the genocide.

M Mitterrand then authorised the French peacekeeping mission, known as Opération Turquoise. Rwandan Tutsis say that French troops first failed to stop the killings, and then established a buffer zone which enabled the killers to escape. These claims have poisoned relations between Paris and Kigali. Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s President, has accused France of failing to tell the truth about Opération Turquoise.

In 1998 a French parliamentary committee attempted to investigate France’s role in the genocide. But most of the evidence that it sought was classified as a state secret.

The French Army is already facing a legal inquiry into allegations that soldiers killed an injured rebel during a peacekeeping mission in the Ivory Coast in May.

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