‘Genocide bill’ hard to put into practice: PACE

ISTANBUL

French UMP party deputy Valerie Boyer participates in a parliamentary vote on a ‘genocide bill.’ REUTERS photo

The president of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) said Jan. 6 the French Senate might pass the resolution criminalizing the denial of Armenian “genocide,” but the law could not be implemented.

Mevlüt Çavusoğlu told Anatolia news agency that the Senate would most probably adopt the resolution, but PACE-member French lawmakers were against the resolution. “French lawmakers do not take this resolution seriously,” he said. Çavusoğlu said French President Nicolas Sarkozy backed the resolution after Turkey became more popular in North African countries. France.

Meanwhile, the Socialist Party, which holds the majority in the Senate, held a five-hour-long information meeting with several groups and officials and consulted with Turkish and Armenian associations, historians and constitution drafters, daily Hürriyet reported.