French President promises to push for adopting law criminalizing denial of Armenian Genocide

YEREVAN, November 12. / ARKA /. French President Francois Hollande assured his visiting Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan that the bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide will be adopted, Armenian Public Television reported. It said the French President made the statement during a dinner with Serzh Sargsyan in Paris.

In late February France's Constitutional Council ruled that a law concerning the mass killings of Armenians a century ago violates the country's constitution. The law, passed in December by French parliament’s lower chamber, made it a crime to deny that the killings of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted genocide. Punishment under the legislation was set at up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros. But the French high court ruled that the law amounts to an "unconstitutional infringement of the exercise of freedom of expression and communication."

During his presidential campaign Francois Hollande promised the Armenian community to push for the adoption of the law criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide.

France passed two laws to recognize the Holocaust, (1990) and the Armenian Genocide (2001). The law makes it a crime the denial of the Holocaust. 

President Serzh Sargsyan arrived in France an official visit late on Sunday evening. In the framework of his three-day visit, Serzh Sargsyan met today with the President of France François Hollande. He was also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, President of the National Assembly Claude Bartolone, and the members of the France-Armenia friendship group of the French National Assembly and Senate. -0-