Thursday, 2 February 2012By Nihal Çizmeciođlu, JTW
JTW conducted an exclusive interview with Maxime Gauin on the current debate regarding the appeal of French senators against the bill prohibiting the denial of genocide.
Q: Seventy French senators collected the required number of signatures demanding the repeal of a law criminalizing denial of the so-called "Armenian genocide." What are the general characteristics of those seventy senators? Are they generally left wing or right wing? We know that Jacques Mezard and Michel Diefenbacher spearheaded the appeal for example but who else?
Maxime Gauin: More exactly, 77 senators and 65 deputies signed two distinct, albeit similar, applications. For the Senate, this is very mixed: 22 Socialists, 18 UMP (Nicolas Sarkozy’s party) members, 15 Liberals, 12 Centrists, 8 Greens and even 2 Communists. Such a convergence of senators from all the groups is absolutely exceptional. The motivations are mainly driven by the respect for constitutional law and concern for maintaining good relations with Turkey. The relatively strong presence of MPs of both the left and right from Alsace, the region of France with, in proportion to the general population, the biggest Turkish community, is easy to understand. In addition, the absence on the list of signatures of some senators notoriously against the bill is explained by the pressures exerted on them. I think, for the UMP, on people like Gérard Larcher, former President of the Senate, currently chairman of the Franco-Turkish friendship group; for the Socialists, on people like Jean-Claude Carrčre, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who interrupted speakers many times during the debate of January 23, saying “Very good!” when a speech was against the bill or “The argument is specious!” when an address was in favor of the text.
Jacques Mézard is from the Radical Party, which is now rather small, but was the main political party in France from its creation in 1901 to 1936 or 1940. There is a pro-Turkish and even more pro-Kemalist tradition in this secular and humanist party. Mr. Mézard explicitly placed his stance in this continuity.
In the Senate, two other main leaders who collected signatures were: Nathalie Goulet (Centrist), supporter of Azerbaijan against the Armenian occupation and now a vice-chairperson of the Franco-Turkish friendship group in the Senate; and Bariza Khiari (Socialist), Vice President of the Senate, who has a very objective approach of the Turkish issues.
In the National Assembly, it is clearly different. Among the 65 signatories, you have 52 deputies of the UMP or a center-right party closely allied to it, 11 Socialists and 2 independents. This is clearly a kind of revolt by the UMP group, where Mr. Sarkozy was actually never very popular, except perhaps during the first six months of his mandate. UMP deputy Lionel Tardy said: “This is an atomic bomb for the Élysée [presidential palace, so Mr. Sarkozy himself], which did not see anything coming.” I join in this appraisal. Mr. Sarkozy did not notice the shift, and to be even more explicit, the anger in the UMP bloc of the National Assembly.
In addition to chairman of the Franco-Turkish Friendship group Michel Diefenbacher, the leaders in the National Assembly were: Jacques Myard, a member of this group and a politician notorious for his contempt of the politically correct; and two deputies of Alsace, Jean-Philippe Maurer and Éric Straumann, who even asked the government to use the urgent procedure, which means the Constitutional Council having to decide in eight days instead of one month. For Mr. Diefenbacher and Mr. Myard, the philosophical and foreign policy reasons are predominant. I loved Mr. Diefenbacher’s comment on his website: “This law is nonsense. […] France, the ‘country of Enlightenment,’ has no vocation to join the exclusive club of countries where the law imposes upon the citizens a certain way of thinking. We are not North Korea or Cuba. Liberty, dear Liberty!” http://www.mdiefenbacher.org/2012/01/genocide-armenien-la-loi-est-votee-quelle-ineptie/
For Mr. Maurer and Mr. Straumann, these reasons exist as well, incontrovertibly; the presence of thousands of French citizens of Turkish origin in their districts is probably also a reason.
Q: We know how Turkish officials reacted to the appeal, Prime Minister Erdođan, President Gül, Foreign Minister Davutođlu and EU Minister Bađýţ all hailed the appeal. What about the French reaction?
Maxime Gauin: Mr. Sarkozy said to UMP deputies, with a considerable understatement: “It did not help me.” That is very understandable: He knows that the law is unconstitutional, but he hoped the Constitutional Council could be seized only by a priority question of constitutionality (Question prioritaire de constitutionnalité, QPC), i.e., an application during a court case. The law would be crushed, too, by a QPC, but later, after the presidential election. Mr. Sarkozy even used an unsubstantiated argument: The applications of MPs would threaten the Gayssot Act. This is false. The Gayssot Act forbids the denial of the existence of a “crime against humanity” condemned by the Nuremberg tribunal or by a French court. The qualification of these crimes is left to freedom of expression. The word “Jews” is never used. For example, if you deny that the Gypsies were subjected to mass killing by the Nazis, you can be sued in the name of the Gayssot Act; if you say that there were gas chambers and other criminal ways to kill Gypsies but challenge the “genocide” label, nobody will sue you. The Gayssot Act is backed only by the authority of res judicata and contains no vague incrimination, unlike the Boyer bill. Such a comment indicates how embarrassed Mr. Sarkozy—a lawyer by profession—is, because of his improper initiative.
I did not find any comment on the website of the Socialist Party, which apparently prefers to speak about economic and social concerns. Actually, such problems are much more important for most of the electorate than the limitation of free speech regarding events which happened nearly a century ago in a foreign country.
Q: How will French-Turkish relations stand after the appeal?
Maxime Gauin: Engin Solakođlu, deputy chief and spokesman of the Turkish embassy’s mission in Paris, stated that the relations, close to rupture, will ease and the Turkish authorities are now awaiting the decision of the Council. The applications to the Constitutional Council are based on a solid argument, and there is no suspense regarding the fate the Boyer bill, including in the eyes of several Armenian nationalists. It would only be logical for the Council to censor the “recognition” of the “genocide” allegation as well, even more since the application of senators, and as far as I know of deputies as well, uses Article 34 of the Constitution among other arguments. This article precisely defines the field of law, and you cannot find any place to qualify historical events. The MPs were sufficiently clever to avoid any direct attack against the “recognition” of 2001, but to include Article 34 in the argument is a barely implicit invitation to suppress this law as well. Such a suppression would be in perfect accordance with the jurisprudence of the Council: This institution has for years considered it perfectly normal, in case of application by QPC or any other way, to check not only the law charged of unconstitutionality, but also any other law which is closely connected to it.
If both texts are deleted, excellent prospects will arise. On the other hand, the Franco-Turkish associations must continue the movement started during the last weeks and create a structure comparable to the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) or the Federation of Turkish Associations in the United Kingdom (FTA UK). These associations should be assisted by all legal means, too. The decision of the Constitutional Council will be a considerable, perhaps unprecedented , blow to Armenian nationalism in France, but will not destroy it completely. For the Turkish side, in every aspect, it is just the beginning. |
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Nihal Çizmecioglu, JTW
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