French and Turkish protesters clash in demo crash

18 Mar 2006
Source: Reuters

LYON, France, March 18 (Reuters) - French youths protesting against a new employment law ended up in an unexpected clash with Turks demonstrating against an Armenian memorial when their separate marches crossed paths in this eastern city on Saturday.

Riot police used water cannon to separate the two groups after about 2,500 Turks opposed to the construction of a memorial in the city centre to Armenian victims of a 1915 massacre attacked the demonstrating youths, police said.

The Turks, waving Turkish flags and holding up posters saying "There was no Armenian genocide," reacted after youths denounced them as "fascists" and yelled "go home!", police said.
[...]
[...]the French parliament passed a bill in 1998 officially recognising the killing as genocide.

Turkey has not taught in its schools the existence of the Armenian nation on the Eastern part of Turkey. Now that Turks are becoming acutely aware of this reality, they are searching for explanations on why there are no Armenians left. With its strong nationalism as the hallmark of the new Turkish republic, Turkey cannot accept the Genocide without destroying the pride in its nationalism. Therefore education and not revisionism is the only means out for Turkey from this dilemma.

The protest against the new employment law was one of many marches across France on Saturday aimed at putting pressure on the Paris government to withdraw the measure that allows employers to fire workers under 26 more easily.
[...]

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.