The French National Assembly is on 22 December to vote on a bill criminalizing the denial of any genocide recognized by French law.
On 7 December the National Assembly's judiciary committee passed the bill, introduced by Valerie Boyer from President Sarkozy's party, the UMP.
The draft law envisages a 45,000 euro fine and one-year imprisonment for denial of genocide.
The bill is of especial concern to Turkey and Armenia, as, if passed, it will criminalize denial that the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 was genocide. Armenia insists that the killings were genocide, while Turkey insists that they were not.
The French National Assembly recognized the killings as genocide back in 2001.
During a visit to the Armenian capital Yerevan in October 2011, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Turkey to recognize the killings as genocide.
“Turkey has had "enough [time] for reflection since the mass killings began in 1915. If Turkey revisited its history and looked face-to-face at the shadows and the light, it would be sufficient to recognize the genocide. If Turkey does not do this, then without doubt it will be necessary to go further," Sarkozy said.
The chairman of the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission, Volkan Bozkir, is to lead a cross-party delegation from Turkey's Grand National Assembly to France ahead of discussion of the bill.
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