The French Senate passed a resolution on 8 February calling for France to recognise the mass killings of Assyrians and Chaldeans living in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1918 as a genocide.
The initiative was brought forward by 76 senators from the right-leaning Republican party and was adopted with 300 votes in favour and two against. The resolution urges the French government to officially recognise the “mass extermination, deportation, and destruction of cultural heritage” of over 250,000 Assyrians and Chaldeans and to “publicly condemn this genocide”. It also proposes that 24 April be declared a day of commemoration for the Armenian genocide and the Assyrian-Chaldean genocide.
The French government has not yet expressed support for the initiative. However, Marseille senator Valérie Boyer, who is the architect of the draft resolution, argues that France has a “historical and moral obligation” to protect Eastern Christians, and that the French parliament must remain faithful to this obligation. Boyer also drew comparisons between what the Eastern Christians experienced in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1918 and the actions of ISIS in Iraq and Syria today.
Turkey’s reaction to the decision was swift, with the Foreign Ministry calling it a “short-sighted attempt” lacking a “legal and historical basis”.
Following the Senate’s decision, a similar initiative is now being proposed in the French National Assembly. However, the government is expected to oppose the initiative, as it did in the Senate. Even if the resolution is adopted, the President and government will have the final say. The law can also be challenged by the Constitutional Council on the grounds of “unconstitutionality”.
