Ceux qui hier encore désapprouvaient l'intervention française sont ce soir de plus en plus nombreux à changer d'avis

Leclerc, Gilles

Dumont, Joël-François

24 juin 1994

19940624

23:00:00

CEST

Journal de 23 heures

Ceux qui hier encore désapprouvaient l'intervention française sont ce soir de plus en plus nombreux à changer d'avis

Pour Alain Juppé, "La France réveille enfin les apathies".

ScriptFrance3JournalDe23Heures24061994.pdf

23242 bytes

3

France 3

INA

Transcription d'une émission de télévision

FR

- Operation Turquoise, which began 24 hours ago in Rwanda, is taking place under satisfactory conditions. At least that is what the French general staff confides tonight. The soldiers have indeed begun their patrols within the country itself. And already the French forces are protecting several refugee camps.
- On the road to Cyangugu, here are the first French soldiers who crossed the Rwandan border yesterday afternoon [June 23]. About fifty men came as scouts. Their mission has been clearly defined: to protect human lives and if necessary to use their weapons. Pierre-Jean Segnier, "commander": "The experience of humanitarian operations that have taken place recently proves that it is necessary to be able to show enough force to avoid using it and being forced to engage in combat".
- The news of the arrival of the first French soldiers spreads quickly. Spontaneously, the population massed at the edge of the roads cheers the soldiers considered as saviors. Many of them didn't even dare to hope anymore. It's the end of a long nightmare.
- First stage of this intervention without the slightest shot, the Nyarushishi camp where 8,000 Tutsi refugees live. The French soldiers disarm the Hutu militias. For the first time in months residents who feel protected will manage to get some sleep.
- Jacques Lanxade: "The deployment is continuing. The means are being put in place. And gradually we will continue our reconnaissance operations to determine exactly what the situation is, what are the problems we will be confronted with".
- The French paratroopers, as they progress, proclaim loud and clear that henceforth all civilians without exception, Hutu as well as Tutsi, are placed under their protection.
- The killings must stop. Going up towards the North they will however discover the first mass graves, witnesses of the genocide which struck Rwanda. The horror. Those who only yesterday disapproved of this French intervention are tonight more and more of them changing their minds.
- But in Kigali, on the spot, the situation remains very tense: bombardments, in particular on the Red Cross hospital, today left five dead.
- On the diplomatic level, it seems that France's action receives the support of several African countries. As for our European partners, they also plan to help the French operation. In short for Alain Juppé, who is at this very moment at the European summit in Corfu, "France, he says, finally awakens apathy". Alain Juppé: "I was able to see today that all our partners approved of France's initiative and, in various forms (sending planes, sending medical units), were ready to join in logistically. This is an action in which France took the initiative. The United Nations gave it the green light. It is being deployed on the ground under the conditions we had planned. I hope that the example thus given can then involve the international community".