PARIS: Lawmakers in France approved a bill Thursday introducing fines and prison sentences to those who deny that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during and after World War 1 amounted to genocide.
Deputies in the National Assembly, France's lower house of Parliament, voted 106-19 favoring the bill, which recognizes the killings of about 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1919 as genocide and imposes a fine of 45,000 euros and a year in prison on those denying it.
Senators from the upper house will now consider the bill, which upon passage, will go before president Jacque Chirac. The bill was introduced by the opposition Socialists.
The country had passed a law in 2001 classifying the Armenian killings as genocide. The proposed legislation intends to make it a crime to deny that genocide.
Armenia contends that Turkey had massacred Armenians during World War I, when Armenia was under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey maintains the Armenians were killed in civil unrest as the empire collapsed.
The vote prompted reactions in Turkey, which is now trying to join European Union. Its chief negotiator in European Union membership talks Ali Babacan said Thursday the French bill flew in the face of freedom of expression. He said it is violating one of the core principles of the European Union.
The Turkish government had approved the launch of a study by scientists and historians into the genocide theory and Babacan said Ankara would accept the conclusion of the study.
A ruling party lawmaker in France, Patrick Devedjian, said the government of Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan, who has sharply criticized the bill, had adopted a law that punishes the admission of a genocide with time in prison in Turkey.
Turkey's foreign ministry said the relations between the two countries, developed over centuries, have been dealt a blow with the bill. It termed the bill as irresponsible false claims of French politicians, who do not see the political consequences of their actions.
In Brussels, the European Commission said the passage of the bill will hamper reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.
EU officials had warned French legislators not to go ahead with their proposal, arguing it could throw already sensitive EU entry talks with Turkey into crisis.
There could be an immediate repercussion. European aircraft maker EADS's Eurocopter unit has been trying to sell military helicopters worth hundreds of millions of euros to Turkey. Observers in Turkey now say the chances of Eurocopter winning the deal are virtually nil.
Turkey could also bar French companies from bidding for state-owned assets, including nuclear power stations.
