TURKEY, FRANCE: FRENCH FIRMS SET TO SUFFER FROM TURKISH ANGER OVER ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL

Monday Morning, Lebanon
Oct 23 2006

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has appealed for
calm and opposes launching a campaign which might end up hurting
Turks more than the French

But the government is still weighing other responses which may hit
French firms, from blocking the country’s defense 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.

On October 12 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 caused widespread dismay, not only in Turkey — several
hundred people rallied outside France’s consulate in Istanbul —
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.

The carmaker Renault, for example, employs hundreds of people at a
factory in the Northwest of the country.

As a result, 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 recently,
adding that his government would proceed with calm.

Lutfu Yenel, head of the Turkish affiliate of the 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 organization, for instance, has said that a
boycott would begin at the 500 gasoline 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 organization
threatened.

"From today onwards, we’re 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 centers 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 merchants’ association has also decided to post on billboards
in the capital pictures of products that will be boycotted such
as perfumes and cosmetics, according to the group’s head Mehmet
Yiginer. And across the country, commercial groups and businessmen
have called on their fellow citizens to cold-shoulder French brands.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress