Rwandan activists have called on France not to allow the burial on its soil of a key orchestrator of the 1994 genocide.

They said they did not want the grave of Theoneste Bagosora to become a pilgrimage site for those who supported the killings of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

France is already a "shelter for many suspects of the genocide and should not become a 'pilgrimage site' for people nostalgic of the genocidal regime", the activist group, Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda (CPCR), said in a statement.

Several members of Mr Bagosora's family live in France.

Bagosora, 80, died in Mali on Saturday where he was serving a 25-five year jail sentence for war crimes.

He was a senior figure in Rwanda's ministry of defence at the time of the killings.

It is not yet known where he will be buried.