Macron and Kagame Inaugurate Paris Memorial to 1994 Rwanda Genocide Victims

French President Emmanuel Macron and Rwandan President Paul Kagame inaugurated a memorial to the victims of the 1994 Tutsi genocide on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, at the Esplanade Habib-Bourguiba on Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The double stele by artist Grada Kilomba consists of two blocks of black brass resting on a lava stone slab overlooking the Seine. The memorial was installed in May 2026.

An inscription on the memorial states that between April 7 and July 4, 1994, more than a million men, women, and children were massacred because they were Tutsi. The text appears in French, English, Kinyarwanda, and Swahili. The four narrow sides list the UNESCO main sites of remembrance: Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi, and Bisesero in Rwanda.

The memorial honours the victims of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Macron said the monument marked "the culmination of a long and patient quest for truth" in confronting France's failure to heed warnings of the impending massacres more than 30 years ago. The work is striking in its human scale.

Such a restrained memorial is rare amid the urban bustle of the quai d'Orsay.