Remarks by a National Rally MP, who ironically mentioned the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda during budget debates in the Assembly, sparked strong condemnation on Thursday and could lead to sanctions.

"Resistance to oppression means not confusing equality with egalitarianism and turning yourself into a Tutsi to cut down the Hutu under the pretext that they were taller," said Frédéric Pierre-Vos, MP for Oise, during a debate on the Dutreil pact, which provides for a 75% reduction on the transfer of family businesses to descendants.

The president of the Green and Social group, Cyrielle Chatelain, reacted immediately, deeming these remarks "absolutely shameful." "This amounts to a denialist attitude (...) Comparing the desire for a fair contribution from the French to a genocide where people were killed with machetes is unacceptable," she thundered.

MP Hervé Berville (Renaissance), born in Rwanda and himself a Tutsi orphan, denounced the statement as "intolerable," adding that it "reverses the victim and the perpetrator." "This says a lot about how far we still have to go to ensure that the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda is fully recognized," he emphasized.

"Thirty years later, to the applause of his colleagues, a National Rally MP chooses to make light of this tragic massacre," reacted the Macronist group on X.

The genocide in Rwanda resulted in more than 800,000 deaths according to the UN, mainly Tutsis exterminated between April and July 1994.

Other MPs condemned this macabre comparison, including the president of the PS group Boris Vallaud, who wished that the bureau of the National Assembly - responsible for pronouncing the heaviest sanctions against MPs - "take up these remarks which are extremely serious".

"I will bring this to the attention of the chair," replied the session chair, Marie-Agnès Poussier-Winsback (Horizons).

MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy (RN) offered his group's apologies, adding: "We honor the memory of the victims of the genocide in Rwanda."

AFP