FRENCH FIRMS SET TO SUFFER FROM TURKISH ANGER OVER ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL
by Burak Akinci
Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday 3:20 AM GMT
With perhaps an eye on Turkey’s precarious bid to join the European
Union, Turkish officials have so far rejected calls for an out-and-out
boycott of French goods to protest a bill making it a crime to deny
Turks committed genocide against Armenians in World War I.
But the government is still weighing other responses which may hit
French firms, from blocking the country’s defence and energy companies
from bidding for multi-million euro (dollar) contracts to the more
symbolic, such as lawmakers replacing their official Peugeot cars.
And although an official ban is unlikely, consumers and businesses
are set to cold-shoulder French goods, nearly five billion euros
(6.25 billion dollars) worth of which entered Turkey last year.
Last Thursday the French National Assembly, the lower house, passed
a bill making it a crime to deny that the 1915-1917 massacres of
Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide.
The bill, which stipulates a prison sentence of up to three years and
a fine of up to 45,000 euros, must be approved by the French upper
house and by President Jacques Chirac before it becomes law.
The result has been widespread dismay, not only in Turkey — several
hundred people rallied outside France’s consulate in Istanbul Saturday
— but also from French historians and European Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso.
Turkey 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.
But it refuses to accept this was genocide.
Armenians, who constitute a sizeable minority in France, say up to 1.5
million of their forbears were slaughtered in orchestrated killings,
which they maintain can only be seen as genocide.
In 2005 France and Turkey exchanged goods worth more than eight billion
euros, and French imports to Turkey were worth 4.7 billion euros.
Commercial ties between the two countries run deep. Some 250 French
companies have strong links with Turkey stretching back many years.
Carmaker Renault, for example, employs hundreds of people at a factory
in the northwest of the country.
As a result Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, together
with the country’s more liberal newspapers, has appealed for calm
and not to launch a campaign which might end up hurting Turks more
than the French.
"What do we have to win or lose by boycotting products? … We should
consider that with a great deal of caution," Erdogan said on Friday,
adding that his government would proceed with calm.
Lutfu Yenel, head of the Turkish affiliate of French telecoms group
Alcatel, said he was astounded by calls for a boycott of his company.
But although an official ban is unlikely, Turkish consumers and
businesses are expected to vent their anger by not buying French.
The country’s consumer organisation, for instance, has said that a
boycott would begin at the 500 petrol stations in Turkey owned by
France’s Total.
Every week there would be an appeal to boycott products from a new
French firm until the genocide bill is scrapped, the organisation
threatened.
"From today onwards, we are going to boycott every week a French
brand and show our reaction in a language that France can understand,"
said Bulent Deniz, the group’s president.
In some commercial centres in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, shops
were calling on Turks not to buy French — although it was business
as usual at an outlet of French chain Lacoste in the city.
Ankara’s union of traders has also decided to post on billboards
in the capital pictures of products that will be boycotted such as
perfumes and cosmetics, the group’s head Mehmet Yiginer said.
And across the country, commercial groups and businessmen have called
on their fellow citizens to cold-shoulder French brands.