FRENCH TRY TO END TURKS’ EU BID
By Kerstin Gehmlich

Gulf Times, Qatar
Oct 15 2006

PARIS: French deputies hailed a vote to make denial of the Armenian
genocide a crime as a triumph for human rights, but analysts said
Thursday’s vote had more to do with fears of Turkey’s EU entry and
an election next year.

Despite harsh criticism from Ankara and business fears of a Turkish
backlash, the lower house of parliament passed a law imposing prison
terms on anyone who denies Armenians suffered genocide in 1915 at
the hands of Ottoman Turks.

Parliamentarians celebrated the Socialist-sponsored bill, which
still needs Senate approval, as "immense progress…for the cause of
humanity" and a "proposal for civil peace".

But analysts said the impulse for the initiative was more prosaic,
coming barely six months before parliamentary and presidential
elections and amid a climate of strong French voter opposition to
Turkey’s European Union entry.

"There is a very strong Armenian minority (in France) but there also
is the issue of bringing Turkey into the EU," said Hall Gardner from
the American University of Paris.

"(The law) is meant to block Turkey’s entry into the EU. That’s the
strategy of some people," he said.

Conservative presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out
strongly against Turkey’s EU entry.

Segolene Royal, his likely Socialist rival has not yet stated her
position on Turkey’s membership but said on Wednesday Ankara needed
to recognise the Armenia genocide to confirm its candidacy.

A recent survey showed some 60% of French opposed to Ankara entering
the bloc. Critics say Turkey is too big, too poor and too culturally
different to become a fully integrated member of the EU.

Concerns about Turkey’s possible EU membership was blamed in part
for French voters’ rejection of the EU constitution in a referendum
last year.

Turkey denies accusations of a genocide of some 1.5mn Armenians during
the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, arguing that
Armenian deaths were a part of general partisan fighting in which
both sides suffered.

France’s Armenian community, which is up to 500,000-strong and one
of the largest in Europe, had pushed hard for the bill and found
cross-party support in parliament.

"Several deputies with strong Armenian communities in their districts
told themselves to ensure re-election, they are standing by those
who demand punishment for denial of the genocide," said political
scientist Didier Billion.

Turkey was quick to condemn the vote and its Foreign Ministry said it
had dealt a severe blow to French-Turkish ties. Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan this week told France to examine its own colonial past rather
than preach to Turkey.

Some French critics asked whether their own country had learnt anything
from its empire having ended in bloody wars in Indochina and Algeria.

A French law urging teachers to stress the "positive role" of the
French overseas presence sparked a heated national debate and large
protests earlier this year, forcing President Jacques Chirac to order
its repeal.

Analysts said the controversy over France’s colonial past made the
human rights rhetoric behind the Armenia bill less credible.

"For some deputies, there is a moral duty to say France, as the home
of human rights, must take a position on these issues," said Billion
of the IRIS institute.

"But … rather than being proud about our universal message on human
rights, we have to address some problems linked to our own history,"
he said.