French Senate to discuss Armenian Genocide bill today.

Today, on January 23, French Senate is expected to discuss the bill on criminalization of Armenian Genocide denial which was accepted by French National Assembly on December 22, 2011.

The discussion is sheduled at 3:00pm Paris time (6:00pm Yerevan time). Armenians and Turks in France will gather today at the French Senate building. One group will support the acceptance of the bill and the other will try to prevent its acceptance.

Armenians in Russia will also hold a meeting at French Embassy in Russia. Armenians will express their solidarity to French Senate in acceptation of the bill.

”France must be an example for every country”, “Genocide is a crime without any terms” will be the mottos of the action.

On December 22, 2011 French National Assembly accepted the bill. If the bill is accepted in French Senate and is signed by French President, everyone who denies Armenian Genocide in France will be sentenced with a year and will be fined with 45.000 Euros. 

French deputy Valerie Boyer is the author of the bill and she explained on Saturday why this bill must be accepted by France. Chairman of the French Senate also announced he will support the bill.

As French National Assembly accepted the bill Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused France in Algerian Genocide and announced a list of sanctions which Turkey is going to hold against France.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to the Turkish Prime Minister and called on him not to spoil Turkish-French relations with the extreme steps.

As Sarkozy noted it is really difficult to look at the own history, but he himself condemned French policy in Algeria during the colonization. By the way, Erdogan tried to use Algerian genocide against France but Algerian PM asked not to use the blood of his nation for the political interests.  

We can follow the discussion live in the official website of the French Senate by this link:

http://videos.senat.fr/video/seance_direct.html