BBC News, UK
Oct 13 2006
Analysis: French focus on Armenian ‘genocide’
By Clive Myrie
BBC News, Paris
A dictionary will tell you that genocide is the organised killing of
a people to end their collective existence.
Ethnic Armenian campaigners in France have hailed the vote
Because of its scope, it requires central planning and a machinery to
implement it.
Genocide was clearly Adolf Hitler’s aim – it was also what the Hutus
of Rwanda desired in 1994.
There are many Turks who will not deny hundreds of thousands of
Armenians were killed in 1915 during a resettlement programme to
other parts of the Ottoman Empire.
But people died, they say, in inter-communal warfare – it was not the
organised killing of a people to end their collective existence. It
was not genocide.
There are many others around the world who beg to differ but some
here in France want to enshrine their view in law.
The lower house of parliament has approved a bill making it a crime
to deny Armenians suffered genocide. No other country has tried this,
so why are the French doing so now?
"Everything is politics" they say and for critics of the French
initiative that is exactly what the controversy is about – politics.
Wooing voters
The bill was proposed by the minority Socialists in the French
Parliament.
There is a presidential election next year and cynics say pushing for
a law criminalising denial of an Armenian genocide plays well with
Armenians here who vote.
Jack Lang, a Socialist MP, believes he knows what is going on and has
broken ranks.
"I believe the Socialist party has adopted an electoralist point of
view. It is not sincere. It is only to get the electoral support of
the Armenian community."
Cynics say there are others whom those who put forward the bill want
to impress: the majority of French people who do not want Turkey
joining the European Union.
Indeed many French politicians agree a mainly Muslim country has no
place in the EU and this may be driving the anti-Turkish bill.
Cross-party support
But is cynicism over the motives behind the bill fair?
For many French politicians denying the Armenian genocide is like
denying the Holocaust and it was not just Socialists who supported
the bill.
They were joined by a number of centre-right politicians too.
Herve Mariton of the ruling UMP party said:
"The genocide is a fact. It is an absolute disgrace for the 20th
Century, it is an absolute disgrace for humanity, it has to be stated
as such."
The government of President Jacques Chirac is in a difficult
position.
He has suggested Turkish recognition of the Armenian genocide should
be a pre-condition of entry into the EU, but he has distanced his
government from the bill.
Principle
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin says it is a bad idea and
insists France wants strong ties with Turkey.
French businesses fear trade will suffer. Exports to Turkey were
worth 4.66bn euros last year.
That is why ultimately the bill will never become law.
It has to go to the Senate for a vote and with the government’s
majority in the upper house, it is highly unlikely to pass.
Gesture politics then and a cry from the heart by MPs who believe it
was genocide, or is all this politicking?
And does it make sense to criminalise Armenian genocide denial
anyway?
French jails would be overcrowded with Turks, proud of their history.
Those in favour of the bill emphatically say yes, the horrors of the
past must not be forgotten or denied.
The new bill is not about politics, they say, but principle.