French give pledges to Armenians
France's opposition presidential candidate, Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande announced that if elected he would make the recognition of the Armenian Genocide as the main precondition for Turkey's membership to the European Union.
C-ordination Council of Armenian organisations of France (CCAF) said in its written statement that Hollande also reiterated his willingness to penalize denial of the Armenian Genocide and voiced support for the construction of an Armenian Genocide museum in Paris by 2015.
On January 23, the French Senate passed a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide, despite threats and bullying from the Turkish state. The bill passed with 127 votes for, 86 against. The bill envisaged a 45,000-euro (60.53 U.S. dollars) fine and a year in jail on those guilty of denying that World War 1-era deaths of over one million Armenians under the Ottoman rule amounted to "genocide."
However, in February more than 130 of senators and MPs across the political divide had appealed to the constitutional court to examine the bill, in a move welcomed by Turkey. On February 28, France's Constitutional Council on Tuesday ruled unconstitutional the bill criminalizing the denial the mass killing of Armenian by Ottoman Turks in 1915. Immediately after the Constitutional Council struck down the bill, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his government to draft a new law punishing denial of the Armenian Genocide.
