France's genocide law is undemocratic

The French National Assembly will vote today on a law that makes denying genocide a criminal offence. It is particularly aimed at Turkey, which has until now refused to publicly recognise the genocide of more than a million Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century. The business paper Les Echos criticises France for interfering in Turkish affairs: "Turkey must take its own measures to come to terms with its past regarding the genocide of the Armenians. That will take a long time, but no one can do it for them. The deputies who support this law for tactical reasons linked to the elections would do well to consider the ramifications of their vote: no democracy can establish an official historiography through laws. On the contrary, it is non-democratic regimes that try to push through a historical truth by law. The criminalisation of the past demanded by this text would open a Pandora's Box full of Vendée Wars, St. Bartholomew's Day massacres, crusades and the slave trading."

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