(Releads with protests, pvs PARIS) By Arthur Asiimwe KIGALI, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Thousands of Rwandans protested on Thursday against a French judge's call for President Paul Kagame to face a U.N. court over a 1994 plane crash which killed the country's leader and sparked a genocide. A day after Paris issued arrest warrants for nine Kagame associates over the crash, up to 25,000 demonstrators, including genocide survivors, gathered in Kigali's Amahoro stadium chanting anti-French songs and burning French flags. Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was hit by a missile as he flew to the Rwandan capital Kigali after a summit in April 1994. His killing triggered the massacre of 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in 100 days of bloodletting. French anti-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere has filed a document at the Paris prosecutor's office, citing evidence that accuses Kagame and members of his military staff of devising the 1994 operation to destroy Habyarimana's plane. Survivors accused Rwanda's former ally of complicity in the central African country's 1994 genocide. Some protesters held placards that read: "French government stop your petty politics and genocide ideology." The backlash came after Bruguiere issued the international warrants for Kagame's associates on charges of "murder" and "complicity in murder", a judicial source in Paris said. Under French law the warrants, to be passed on by Interpol, mean the suspects have been placed under official investigation and now face questioning by the French judge. Bruguiere earlier this week called for Kagame to be brought before a U.N. court, a move the Rwandan president has denounced as "bullying and arrogant". Kagame has said French judges have no authority over judges in Rwanda. Under French law, a warrant cannot be issued for Kagame, who enjoys diplomatic immunity as a serving head of state. But a judicial source said Bruguiere had written to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan asking for Kagame to be brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Business came to a halt in the Rwandan capital on Thursday afternoon as government offices and banks closed their doors to take part in the protest. "The French trained Interahamwe (Hutu militias) everywhere in the country but it did not stop them from losing," Francois Ngarambe, president of Ibuka, an umbrella organisation that groups together genocide survivors told demonstrators. Bruguiere issued warrants for James Kabarebe, military chief of staff; Charles Kayonga, army chief of staff; Faustin Nyamwasa-Kayumba, ambassador to India; Jackson Nkurunziza, a Ugandan working for the Rwandan presidential guard; Samuel Kanyamera, an FPR deputy; Jacob Tumwime, an army officer; Franck Nziza, a presidential guard officer; Eric Hakizimana, an intelligence officer; and Rose Kabuye, nee Kanyange, director general of state protocol.
