FRENCH MPS DEBATE ARMENIA ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL TO TURKEY’S FURY
Turkish Press
Oct 12 2006
PARIS – French MPs began debate Thursday on a bill that has provoked
fury in Turkey because it aims to criminalise opinions dissenting from
France’s official view that the 1915-1917 massacres of Armenians by
the Ottomans constituted genocide.
Introduced by the left-wing Socialist opposition, the draft law would
make it a crime in France to deny that the killings were genocide,
hitting violators with a prison term of up to one year and a fine of
up to 45,000 euros (57,000 dollars).
Turkey, the modern state which emerged from a sprawling Ottoman empire
that included Armenia, has said that, if the legislation is passed,
it would threaten France’s economic investments on its soil.
"If the bill is adopted, Turkey will not lose anything, but France
will lose not only Turkey, but something of itself as well," Turkish
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Wednesday.
Ankara contests the term "genocide" for the killings and strongly
opposes the bill’s provisions.
It says 300,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in civil
strife when Armenians took up arms for independence and sided with
invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire fell apart during World
War I.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were slaughtered
in orchestrated killings that can only be seen as genocide.
Around 400,000 people of Armenian origin are estimated to live in
France, the most famous being the singer Charles Aznavour, born
Chahnour Varinag Aznavourian to immigrant parents.
One French MP of Armenian descent Patrick Devedjian, who belongs
to the ruling conservative UMP party, told RTL radio that "I see no
reason why the right shouldn’t vote" in favour of the bill.
He said an amendment he had attached to it which would exclude
scientists, historians and academics from the provision of the law
made the bill "more reasonable".
Turkey was simply trying to employ "denial propoganda" over the
Armenian killings, he claimed.
France in 2001 already adopted a law officially calling the massacres
a genocide — sparking a first found of Turkish anger that had
short-lived negative consequences for French firms in Turkey.
The new bill would go further by making it illegal to deny that
genocide took place, much in the way denial of the Holocaust during
World War II is a crime in France.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the proposed law
"a blunder" and Turkish newspapers Thursday were scathing in saying
the bill undermined France’s commitment to freedom of expression.
"Liberty, equality and stupidity," was how one daily, Hurriyet,
headlined its opinion.
The French press showed less interest in the furore, relegating
coverage of the debate to deep inside its newspapers.
Liberation, a left-wing daily, printed a letter from the Socialist
MP who wrote the bill, Didier Migaud, in which he argued that it was
needed so France "is not an accomplice to a censorship" of history.
The vote on the bill which is to follow its debate could come as
early as Thursday. But even if the MPs pass it, that would only be
the start of a lengthy process.
>>From the French National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament,
it would then be sent up to the UMP-dominated Senate, or upper chamber,
for another vote before returning to the National Assembly.
If adopted by both chambers, Chirac would be required to sign it
into law.
Ankara has warned that if that eventually happens, French companies
will be barred from economic projects in Turkey. A boycott of French
goods has also been threatened by Turkish businesses.
Bilateral trade totalled 8.2 billion euros (10 billion dollars) in
2005, and France is a major investor in Turkey, with some 250 firms
active in that country.