France pulled out of 20th anniversary memorials for victims of the Rwandan genocide yesterday after President Paul Kagame again accused Paris of “participating” in the 1994 mass killings.

Foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said that France was “surprised” by Mr Kagame’s accusation and announced that Justice Minister Christiane Taubira would not attend today’s events in Rwandan capital Kigali.

“France regrets that it cannot take part,” he said.

Mr Kagame had denounced the “direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation for the genocide.”

He also accused French soldiers of being both accomplices and “actors” in the bloodbath.

Paris has repeatedly denied the accusations and insisted that French forces had striven to protect civilians.

Mr Kagame’s Rwandan Popular Front (FPR) rebels overthrew the Hutu-led administration in 1994 and his party still controls the government.

But many of those accused of the worst war crimes escaped, allegedly under the cover of the French military mission.

In 2008, a report by Rwanda’s Mucyo commission of inquiry concluded that France had trained the militias that carried out killings and that French troops had taken part in massacres.

It accused 13 politicians and 20 officers by name.

“Twenty years later, the only thing you can say against them in their eyes is they didn’t do enough to save lives during the genocide,” Mr Kagame said.

“That’s a fact, but it hides the main point: the direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation of the genocide and the participation of the latter in its execution.”