The outpouring of affection towards French soldiers is from the heart, but it is temporary. The real aims of the war will become clearer for Malians, and time will not be on the French’s side. Benign foreign forces don’t exist anywhere. The French media can delude themselves, but for them, I would say that the bride is still too beautiful! And then, you know, as Operation Serval is taking place, the Parisian press is simultaneously disclosing more and more precise evidence of the active French role in the attack of 6th April 1994 in Kigali, Rwanda, where the plane carrying Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down by missiles as it was about to land to Kigali. This, as you know, triggered the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. The strong involvement of France in the last genocide of the 20th century is an indelible stain on its honor, and the momentary cheering in Gao and Timbuktu cannot deflect from this. (Boubacar Boris Diop) More here.