Last Updated: Thursday, 12 October 2006, 10:20 GMT 11:20 UK
French in Armenia ‘genocide’ row
The French parliament has adopted a bill making it a crime to deny
that Armenians suffered "genocide" at the hands of the Turks,
infuriating Turkey. The bill, which would make genocide denial
punishable by a year in jail and a 45,000-euro ($56,400) fine, will
now be passed to the Senate and president.
Turkey has threatened to retaliate with economic sanctions against
France.
Armenia says Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million people systematically in
1915 – a claim strongly denied by Turkey.
Free vote
Turkey has been warning France for weeks not to pass the bill.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday: "If this bill
is passed, Turkey will not lose anything but France will lose
Turkey. [France] will turn into a country that jails people who
express their views."
The vote, in the lower house of the French parliament on Thursday
morning, was sponsored by the opposition Socialist party.
The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) did not back the law,
but gave its deputies a free vote.
It passed by 106 votes to 19.
EU membership bid
The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says many Turks are angry at
what they see as double standards in the EU, where opinions are
sharply divided about whether Turkey should be allowed to join.
The official Turkish position states that many Christian Armenians and
Muslim Turks died in fighting during World War I – but that there was
no genocide.
France’s President Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have
both said Turkey will have to change that position and recognise the
Armenian deaths as genocide before it joins the EU.
Turks argue that while the EU is pressuring Turkey to improve its
legislation to ensure full freedom of speech France seems to be moving
in the opposite direction.
EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn urged France not to adopt the
bill, which he said was "counterproductive".
Turkish politicians on Wednesday considered a law that would make it a
crime to deny that French killings in Algeria in 1945 were genocide.
But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan objected, saying: "We are not
like those who clean dirt with dirt."
France has about 500,000 people of Armenian descent – thought to be
the largest Armenian immigrant community in western Europe.
There are accusations in Turkey that the Armenian diaspora and
opponents of Turkey’s EU membership bid are using this issue to
prevent Turkey joining the 25-member bloc.
The Socialist MP and former minister Jack Lang helped to draft an
existing French law which recognises that Armenians suffered genocide
in Turkey.
But he told the BBC’s World Today programme that the new bill was
unnecessary.
"I cannot give my vote to a completely stupid law which will punish
somebody who expressed free judgement concerning historical
facts. It’s not acceptable.
"We have to help Turkey to accept, progressively, what was history. I
think that this provocation of the French parliament will not help the
consciousness in Turkey," he said.