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France prepares ban on denying a Turkish genocide of Armenians

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  • France prepares ban on denying a Turkish genocide of Armenians

    World Socialist Web Site
    Dec 30 2011


    France prepares ban on denying a Turkish genocide of Armenians

    By F. Dubois
    30 December 2011


    The National Assembly's passage on December 22 of a law banning the
    public denial of the Armenian genocide has provoked a major diplomatic
    crisis between France and Turkey. In the days before the vote on the
    law, the Turkish government tried to exert pressure to prevent the
    vote, and reacted forcefully once the law was passed.

    The Turkish state forbids the use of the term genocide to characterise
    the massacres of Armenians perpetrated in 1915 on the territory of the
    former Ottoman Empire.

    The infringement of the new French law now carries the penalty of a
    year in prison and a 45,000 fine.

    The initiative for this law came from President Nicolas Sarkozy's
    government. During a visit to the Armenian capital Erevan in October,
    he publicly pressed for the recognition of the Armenian genocide,
    since `denial was not acceptable.' Valérie Boyer, a deputy of the
    ruling UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) for a Marseille constituency
    with a large Armenian community, then proposed a bill on behalf of the
    government.

    Most of the deputies were not present for the debate before the vote.
    The law was finally only voted on by some 50 majority and opposition
    deputies, out of 577, with about 10 from both sides voting against.

    The Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) voted with the
    government in favour of the law, which, in fact, is a reprise of a
    similar law passed by the National Assembly in 2006, which the UMP and
    the government then opposed.


    Historians who had already opposed such a law, again expressed their
    hostility to the present law. In particular, they are worried that it
    represents an attack on freedom of enquiry and freedom of speech, and
    oppose giving the state the right to gag historians. The French
    historian Pierre Nora, who opposes the voting of the law, in the name
    of historians' freedom, is quoted in Le Monde.

    The law is deeply reactionary. It allows French imperialism to
    hypocritically set itself up as a moral authority as it carries out a
    military offensive in the Muslim world - with wars in Libya and in
    Afghanistan, and an on-going intervention in Syria carried out with
    the US and Turkey. It also facilitates dividing the working class
    along ethnic lines, while giving the state anti-democratic censorship
    powers.

    One of Sarkozy's more or less openly admitted motivations, in the
    context of the campaign for the presidential election in April and May
    2012, was to attract the Armenian vote.


    Sarkozy is seeking re-election, as his government becomes ever more
    unpopular. His inability to provide any solution to the economic
    crisis and his repeated attacks on living standards, jobs and civil
    rights as well as his defence of finance capital have provoked
    hostility in the majority of the population. He is led in the polls by
    the PS, and the neo-fascist National Front is close behind.

    Sarkozy has systematically opposed the entry of Turkey into the
    European Union (EU). The issue of the denial of the genocide, which
    the new law penalises and puts at the same level as the Shoah, serves
    as a further obstacle to Turkey's membership of the EU.

    As the former UMP minister and vehement supporter of the law, Patrick
    Devidjan, admitted: `It's a political act: just when Turkey wants to
    join the European Union, and appear to be a country which defends
    human rights, this law helps to reveal the attitude of Turkey on the
    international arena and clearly shows that Turkey is not the country
    of human rights.'

    The announcement of the vote set off a major diplomatic crisis with
    Turkey. The Turkish government and media reacted aggressively to the
    vote. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened France
    with economic and political sanctions, the freezing of military
    cooperation, and diplomatic isolation in the Middle East.

    Sarkozy's initiative provoked incredulity and anger among many
    bourgeois politicians, even within his own government. Foreign
    Minister Alain Juppé (UMP) was quoted in the weekly Marianne saying:
    `This bill is intellectually, economically and diplomatically
    bullsh*t. We're not going to get into a genocide competition. All that
    just to get the votes of Frenchmen of Armenian extraction. It's
    ridiculous!'


    Another rival presidential candidate, Dominique de Villepin, a former
    prime minister who left the UMP in February 2011, has called the
    voting of the law an `error.' On December 25 on Europe 1 radio
    station, he warned: `Let's be prudent. We are opening up disputes
    which will push us backwards and not forwards.'


    That a section of big business should express its misgivings publicly
    is not surprising. The past five years have seen a noticeable
    rapprochement of France with Turkey, and a strong increase of French
    investment in the country. Turkey has become an important export
    market. France, which has 11.5 billion direct investments in Turkey,
    sold 6.3 billion worth of exports there and bought 5.4 billion worth
    of imports in 2010.

    French car makers have 20 percent share of the Turkish market, and
    French banks have obtain significant interest income there.

    At a time when French imperialism is intervening in Syria, where it
    partially depends on Turkey for assistance, Sarkozy's initiative seems
    very ill-chosen for large sections of the French bourgeoisie.

    France has established close collaboration with Turkey in order to
    intervene in the civil war which is developing between the Alawite
    regime of Assad and the imperialist-backed Syrian National Council and
    the Free Syrian Army. This imperialist intervention in Syria must be
    seen in the broader context of a political, and potentially military,
    imperialist confrontation with Iran throughout the Middle East.

    Ever more pressing demands for a military intervention in Syria by the
    imperialist powers, including France, are being expressed. Some days
    ago, Bernard Valero, spokesman for the Foreign Office called on the
    United Nations Security Council to vote `a firm resolution which
    demands the end of the repression.'

    According to the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, and the
    Turkish daily Milliyet, the Free Syrian Army is trained by British
    soldiers and French intelligences service agents. For weeks the FSA
    has been calling for `foreign air strikes' (according to Le Monde of
    November 24). France has committed itself to the establishment of a
    `buffer zone' between Turkey and Syria.

    The French Senate must now debate the bill voted by the National
    Assembly. The UMP Senator Roger Karoutchi pointed out yesterday that
    it had not yet been written into the Senate timetable, adding that it
    made him `uncomfortable'. According to Karoutchi, the Senate could
    decide to place bill on the agenda for January 10, which would mean
    that the Senate would debate it in February.


    Zeynep Necipoglu of the French Chamber of Commerce in Turkey (CCFT)
    has announced that the CCFT would carry out `a determined campaign
    with the senators to make them aware.... of the great amount of damage
    that [this initiative] is likely to cause.' According to the CCFT,
    this could enable the French political establishment to `act in order
    for the bill to be voted down in the Senate.'

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/arme-d30.shtml

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