French politicians pass Armenian massacre bill

Thursday, October 12, 2006
CBC News
The Associated Press

French lawmakers in Paris on Thursday approved a bill making it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during and after the First World War amounted to genocide.

Deputies in the National Assembly voted 106-19 for the bill, which has prompted outrage in Turkey and embarrassed the French government. The issue has become intertwined with Turkey's efforts to join the European Union.

The bill, which was introduced by the opposition Socialists, must still be passed by the Senate and signed by President Jacques Chirac.

France's minister for European affairs, Catherine Colonna, said just before the vote that the government did not look favorably on the bill. "It is not for the law to write history," she said in parliament.

The French bill would recognize the killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1919 as genocide, and those who contest a genocide would risk up to a year in prison and fines of up to $56,000.

Armenia accuses Turkey of massacring Armenians during World War I, when Armenia was under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says Armenians were killed in civil unrest during the collapse of the empire.

A similar bill was shelved in the spring amid pressure from Ankara.

Thursday's vote dominated the front pages of most Turkish newspapers and two Turkish TV networks broadcast the parliamentary debate live.

Pro-Turkish protesters gathered in front of the National Assembly on the Seine River, while pro-Armenian demonstrators rallied behind the building.

Turkey's chief negotiator in European Union membership talks said Thursday that the French bill flew in the face of freedom of expression.

"This is violating one of the core principles of the European Union," Ali Babacan told a think-tank session in Brussels.

"Leave history to historians," he said, adding that Ankara felt such issues should not be dealt with in a parliamentary vote.

French governing party lawmaker Patrick Devedjian responded at Thursday's session by saying, "Turkey has no lesson to teach us about the repression of opinion."

He noted that the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, who has sharply criticized the bill, had adopted a law that punishes the admission of a genocide with time in prison in Turkey.

Chirac, during a visit to Armenia last month, said the bill "is more of a polemic than of legal reality" but he also urged Turkey to recognize "the genocide of Armenians" in order to join the European Union.

"Each country grows by acknowledging its dramas and errors of the past," Chirac said.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist leader in the Assembly, said Tuesday that the bill should not be seen as an act of "aggression against the Turkish state and the Turkish nation."

But some Socialists, including former culture minister and lawmaker Jack Lang, have expressed their opposition. Lang said the bill was unconstitutional and would infringe on freedom of expression.

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