French MPs defy Turkey by approving Armenian genocide bill

France put at risk its ties with Turkey, a key NATO ally and one of Europe’s fastest growing economies, on Thursday, when France’s lower house of parliament approved a bill on Thursday that would make it criminal offence to deny genocide. The bill has triggered outrage in Turkey as it would include the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in Ottomon Turkey.
The bill will next be put to the Senate, or upper house, for debate in 2012, with its backers hoping that it will be adopted before parliament takes a break at the end of February ahead of presidential elections. Turkey, meanwhile, has recalled its ambassador to France in reatliation, a Turkish official said.
The bill has triggered outrage in regional powerhouse Turkey as it would include the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. Turkey has threatened further diplomatic and trade sanctions, accusing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party of pandering to France’s large Armenian community ahead of elections next year.
France wants to work closely with Turkey on dealing with the Iranian nuclear stand-off and the crisis in Syria, as well as tap into its large market, and the effects of a breakdown in relations could be major. But ruling party lawmakers are determined to pass a bill that would make it a crime to deny the century-old deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Turkish Ottoman forces amounted to a genocide.
The debate began Thursday under tight security, after around 4,000 Turkish expatriates living in France gathered outside parliament to protest the vote and to denounce the dark periods in France’s own history. “I’m astonished that at the moment when Turkey is knocking on the door of the European Union, this great country is inciting its nationals to protest in France,” declared Valerie Boyer, the UMP lawmaker sponsoring the bill.
The official line from Sarkozy’s government is that the genocide law is an idea of parliament. On Thursday it defended the right of lawmakers to vote on the issue, without specifically endorsing it. But the government made sure there was time on the parliamentary calendar to vote on the issue, and it is largely supported by members of Sarkozy’s UMP. Turkey has said it blames the French “executive”.
According to the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine, France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe is furious about the “stupid” bill, arguing that it will provoke a damaging rift with Ankara for purely political ends. France is home to around 500,000 citizens of Armenian descent and they are seen as a key source of support for Sarkozy and the UMP ahead of presidential and legislative elections in April and June nest year.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed during World War I by the forces of Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire.
Turkey disputes the figure, arguing that only 500,000 died, and denies that it was a genocide, ascribing the toll to the fighting and accusing the Armenians of siding with Russian invaders.
Turkey has branded the French law an attack on freedom of expression and historical inquiry, and its ruling and opposition parties jointly denounced it as a “grave, unacceptable and historic mistake.” The French law would impose a 45,000 euro fine and a year in prison for anyone in France who denies the genocide.