Today’s session of the parliament of France is going to be in the center of attention of all Armenians of the world. The parliament is going to hear the bill which sanctions the denial of the Armenian Genocide.
Of course the bill doesn’t contain the word Armenia or Turkey. It relates to recognized genocides in general. So far France has recognized two genocides – the Armenian and the Holocaust. In the case of the Holocaust have been exercised long years before. Therefore, the bill exactly relates to the genocide of 1915. That is the reason why Turkey feels embarrassed. It sends warning letters to France, threatens that the adoption of the bill will have irreversible consequences for French- Turkish relations. But all this seemingly doesn’t affect France as a country calmly relates to the Turkish threats. Moreover, it has somewhat contemptuous attitude. For example, the Turkish businessmen are not provided with the hall or the French President Nicholas Sarkozy has been avoiding the calls of his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul. Why does France endanger its relations with such an important country as Turkey? More surprisingly, it is very hard to explain why Sarkozy’s administration has now decided to back this bill because this initiative has always belonged to the leftists, that is the opposition. The French ruling party has always banned this bill. Both in Armenia and the Diaspora people understand that this bill has a political context. In particular, the French Armenians openly claim that Sarkozy needs every single ballot. Even the representatives of the ruling party of France admit that for the time being the leftists have the advantage. And if nothing is changed, Sarkozy will lose the May race. In that aspect, they need the votes of the Armenian electorate. But the French Armenians don’t care about that. The most important thing for them is to have the bill adopted. The French, on the other hand, deny that the bill is linked to the upcoming elections. For example, the author of the bill French MP, Valerie Boien, notes that during the parliamentary elections, her opponent represented the Socialist camp and is one of the activist’s of the bill. But he lost the elections. It means that the factor of the Armenian electorate was not that crucial. In fact, however, the matter is linked to the election campaign. But it would be naïve to think that this is the most important factor. First, in France the Turkish population makes a significant number. Second, we should not forget that modern Turkey has a significant economic weight and plays a key geopolitical role in the world. This means that the superpowers of the world, including France, can’t ignore the opinion of this country. By adopting the bill, France jeopardizes its relations with Turkey and thus contradicts its own national interests. And everybody realizes this. But if Sarkozy consciously acted against the interest of his country, the French citizens would not ever forgive him, even the ones who are currently his supporters. This means that there are deeper geopolitical reasons. And the difference between countries like France and Armenia is that the former prioritizes its national interests before bargaining about political or personal ambitions. “The economic weight of modern Turkey, which creates thousands of workplaces in France and the U.S., strategic position and regional political importance, are among the factors that pressure the foreign policies of France and the U.S. The interests of the two countries are also the interests of the citizens with Armenian descent,” says French- Armenian analyst Albert Grigoryan and reminds that pragmatism and realism dominate the world. As we mentioned the Diaspora doesn’t bring up the actual reasons. For the Diaspora, the issue of the genocide has become a key mobilizing power and even the dream. It’s hard to imagine what other issue would mobilize Armenians so much if at some point the genocide is ultimately recognized by all countries, including Turkey. The desperate romantics say that after that they will proceed with returning the territories. However, in the Diaspora, including the so- called ‘old Diaspora,’ there are reasonable people. As the next important issue many of the French- Armenians bring up the NKR conflict. It means that after the adoption of the bill they are going to stand for the resolution of the conflict in favor of Armenians. Let’s mention that the priorities of the Diaspora Armenians seem astonishing even for those French politicians who are quite active in the adoption of the bill. But many of them are not interested in the NKR conflict. “The Armenian community is very interested in the bill, but many of them are not interested in the NKR conflict. This is very surprising for us just because of the reason that in Karabakh there are also Armenians…,” told us a French MP, by adding that some of the Diaspora Armenians are not even interested in Armenia. We will speak in more detail about the NKR conflict and the Diaspora Armenians in our next editions. Let’s only remember that today the French National Assembly is going to discuss the bill. This time everybody is confident that the national assembly will adopt it. We should not forget that the Senate is also due to vote for it. At any rate, today’s decision of the French parliament should not be considered a matter of life and death. We should not get too carried away from reality and, by dreaming we should not ignore the role of geopolitical factors which have got nothing in common with the emotions and hopes of Armenians. In the event if this bill is rejected, we should not get too discouraged because the future of the Armenian people does not depend as much on this bill as more material and substantial matters.