FRENCH GOVERNMENT DISTANCES ITSELF FROM ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
October 10, 2006 Tuesday 1:56 PM EST

DPA POLITICS France Diplomacy Turkey French government distances
itself from Armenian genocide bill Paris The French government on
Tuesday distanced itself from a bill, drawn up by the opposition
Socialist Party, that would make it a crime to deny that Turkey had
committed genocide against

the Armenian people more than 90 years ago.

The bill, which is to be examined Thursday in the National Assembly,
"does not involve the government" and "is not necessary," foreign
ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told journalists in Paris.

The proposed law has provoked rage in Turkey, which has threatened
to carry out economic boycotts against French companies. In 2001,
bilateral relations suffered a similar setback when France passed a
law in which the murder of thousands of Armenians in the declining
days of the Ottoman Empire was characterized as "genocide."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said the
proposed law was a blow against freedom of speech and that a "populist
and cheap game" was being played by French politicians.

"This wrong move will change nothing for Turkey but it will change
a lot for France … When did it become France’s duty to get involved

in a problem between Turkey and Armenia? The world is not a campus
for colonizers any more. That era is over," Erdogan said.

It was not clear if the bill would receive enough votes to pass
through the National Assembly. On Thursday, the majority UMP party
said most of its deputies would not take part in the vote.

The dispute comes less than two weeks after French President Jacques
Chirac, on a visit to Armenia, said he wanted Turkey to admit

the Armenian genocide before it could join the European Union,
a condition no one else has ever set for Ankara.