Sarkozy gets a black eye over new bill

Saeed Khalouzadeh; Mehr News - The French parliament passed a law in 2001 recognizing the killing of more than one million Armenians by Turkish soldiers in 1915 as genocide.

The move angered the Turkish government at the time, leading to a series of tit-for-tat actions by Ankara and Paris.

The French National Assembly approved a bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide in 2006, but that measure was rejected by the Senate.

However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent trip to Yerevan paved the way for the approval of a similar bill in the lower house of the French parliament. According to the new bill, anyone who denies the incident could be subject to a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros.

The Senate must still approve the bill for it to become a law. However, the low number of votes it received in the lower house shows that it is very unlikely that the controversial bill will be ratified by the Senate.

Moreover, after Turkey’s harsh response to the move, the French government was censured in several quarters. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vehemently criticized the bill, cancelled all economic, political, and military meetings with France, and recalled the Turkish ambassador from Paris.

Turkey views the move as a campaign ploy by Sarkozy’s ruling party meant to attract the votes of the country’s Armenian minority.

Armenians have an influential role in the political, economic, and cultural spheres in France.

The ratification of the bill by the lower house of the French parliament has had many repercussions for Sarkozy inside France.

The move, which was meant to gain votes for the ruling party in the upcoming presidential election, has backfired. The country’s Turkish minority has protested against the measure, and other Muslim groups in France have also expressed their dissatisfaction.

The French government’s failure to respond to the economic needs of its citizens and the decline in France’s position in the international arena have caused discontent in the country. Thus, the new bill could cause Sarkozy to lose votes in the upcoming election.

The move could also intensify Turkey’s anger with France over the country’s obstruction of the accession of Turkey to the European Union. Influential governments in the EU, including France, have opposed the accession, mainly due to the fact that the Turkish government is currently in the hands of a party that follows Islamic principles. The applications of countries like Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Cyprus were easily accepted. But over the past few years, Turkey has made serious efforts to gain admission to the European Union, but to no avail.

Bearing all this in mind, it is clear that the controversial bill will have many ramifications for both Turkey and France.

However, due to Turkey’s harsh response to the move, France will experience more negative repercussions than Sarkozy had anticipated.