French Senate Passes Genocide Bill

The French Senate has approved a bill making it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide.

Senators voted 127 to 86 in favor of the new law. Supporters and opponents rallied outside.

 Turkey has previously condemned the bill, threatening ‘permanent consequences’ should it pass. After the vote, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said ’European values are under threat…If each parliament takes decisions containing its own views of history and implements them, a new era of Inquisition will be opened in Europe.”

If President Sarkozy ratifies the bill, denying the genocide could result in a fine of 45,000 Euros. Under French law, denying the holocaust is already a crime.

In Turkey public affirmation of the Armenian genocide is treated as a crime as it is considered an insult to Turkish identity.