ANGRY SCENES AS FRENCH PARLIAMENT SHELVES VOTE ON ARMENIAN ‘GENOCIDE’

Agence France Presse — English
May 18, 2006 Thursday 12:14 PM GMT

PARIS, May 18 2006

Angry scenes broke out in the French National Assembly on Thursday
after lawmakers were forced to call off a vote on a bill that would
make it a punishable offence to deny the Armenian “genocide”.

Debate on the opposition bill — which has sparked a diplomatic row
between France and Turkey — started late, and the time allocated
for its discussion ran out before a vote could take place.

Shouts filled the assembly as the bill’s supporters accused members
of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) of stalling debate.

Dozens of lawmakers — angrily yelling “Vote! Vote!” — had to be
evacuated from the building after the leader of the assembly declared
the session closed.

Earlier Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy came out openly against the bill,
which follows on from a 2001 French law officially recognising the
Turkish massacres of Armenians at the end of World War I as genocide.

“If adopted, this text would be seen as an unfriendly gesture by the
great majority of the Turkish people,” he told lawmakers, warning
its adoption would have “serious political consequences and weaken
our position not only in Turkey but across the entire region.”

If approved, the bill would allow up to five years in prison and a
fine of 45,000 euros (57,000 dollars) for denying that Turkish troops
committed genocide against the Armenians.

The same punishment is on the statute books for people who deny that
the Jewish Holocaust took place.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — backed by Turkish
business leaders and unions — appealed this month to France to block
the contentious new bill, warning of the threat to bilateral relations.

While the 2001 law was passed when the Socialist Party had a majority
in the National Assembly, the new bill could pass only with support
from ruling party deputies.

The UMP said its members had a free vote — raising the prospect that
a number of lawmakers could have voted for the text.