France legislates on history

George Orwell should be around today to witness France's latest attempt to ban ideas that citizens are not allowed to express. In an initiative that could have come from 1984, the French parliament today approved a bill that would make it a crime to deny that Turkey carried out genocide against Armenians in 1915-17. The draft law was promoted by the Socialist opposition and also backed by a few dozen members of President Chirac's centre-right Union for a Popular Majority. It was also supported by both Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, the two stars of the current presidential campaign.

If the law comes into force, the French police could arrest you for voicing doubts about the nature of the massacres of Armenians in the closing years of World War One. You could then be taken before a judge who could send you to prison for up to year or fine you up to 45,000 euros. I am not making this up. Here is today's Times story

Years ago, I used to attend trials in Russia in which critics of the Soviet system were sentenced to long terms in labour camps in Siberia for the offence of "slandering" their country. In Iran these days, they execute people for a similar offence, called "sowing disorder". The European Union and Turkish intellectuals, writers and artists, are now bringing pressure on the Turkish government to revoke the notorious Article 301. This makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness". Almost 100 writers and artists have been prosecuted under it in recent years, some for campaigning for recognition of the Armenian genocide. President Chirac has even said that Turkey cannot enter the European Union without abandoning Article 301.

Turkish campaigners for free speech are aghast at the French stunt. Chirac has disowned it and his government is likely to kill the embryo law by refraining from sending it to the Senate. But the very idea that it could be drafted and approved by a heavy parliamentary majority -- albeit for electoral reasons -- speaks volumes about France's fondness for laws that define what you should or should not say.

Yes, some countries, including Britain, have an offence of criminal libel, and many ban public speech that incites racial hatred. But France goes further -- along with some others -- by defining what you are allowed to say about history. Several people have been convicted in France in recent years for denying the Holocaust -- an offence that also exists in 11 other European states. Chirac's party passed a law a couple of years ago that obliged teachers to put a positive spin on France's conduct towards its former colonies. The president annulled the law after a furore. Not surprisingly, Turkish parliamentarians are now suggesting a law making it a crime in Turkey to deny the massacre of Algerians by French troops in the mid 20th century -- a topic that is only now emerging from taboo in France.

You don't have to be an ultra-libertarian to feel uneasy about the idea of police and prosecutors vetting what people say or write, however offensive their words might be. In their rush to please Armenian voters, the French socialists are forgetting that famous line from their 18th century compatriot, Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Comments

[Mark Basquille]

Charles in 1984 the powers enforced the people to believe in made up truths. However this law requires people to stop denying that the Armenian genocide happened. Surely this is the morally right thing to do. If France already has one for the Nazi holocaust then it is only right it is enacting this law for the first genocide of this century.

While I believe in personal freedoms, denying history is not one of them.

[Frank Schnittger]

"If the law comes into force, the French police could arrest you for voicing doubts about the nature of the massacres of Armenians in the closing years of World War One"

I have a lot of doubts about this, mainly because I don't know much about it. I know ignorance of the law is not a defence, but is ignorance itself now also going to be a crime? I suspect our prison populations are going to become rather large if every state enacts such laws.

Personally I think that denying British complicity in the Irish Famine should become a crime. After all, millions died or were forced to emigrate. Perhaps the Soviet system of Psychiatric hospitals or the Chinese re-education camps would be more appropriate if thought control is the ultimate objective.

I must remember the Armenian Genocide, I must remember the Armenian genocide, I must remember the Armenian genocide……………

[unkle]

While a partly agree on what you say about denying people the right to say what they want, would you please tell us if anyone has been taken to prison for such conviction on denying the Holocaust ? I must say I do not think so...

Making laws about history is an issue. The thing is that people who deny the armenian genocide by themselves, as "historians" or because they were involved, are probably not dangerous for a democracy. People who deny for political reasons start to take themselves away from the historian sphere, and in Europe, in many places, banning "some" political expressions is quite common (usually far-right or far-left). In France banning of "Bloc Identitaire" or "Tribu Ka" was kind of the same thing... You break organisations, and if people make them back, they can be sentenced to jail (but usually not).

So what is funny is that more than the parallel with Turkey, is the parallel with the recent "events" in Danemark and Germany, about prophets, drawings, theaters, whatever. I love liberty of thought and expression. In both case. Would we all agree ? I do not think so, and I would love to ear why.

Even if I am against this law, I must say it still has some background: we basically talk more about politic views than history. And sometimes, in most countries, even democratic ones, politic opinions can be declared illegal.

[Valentin]

This is a mostly symbolic law, in my view. It is also that there's always been an active armenian diaspora in France.

On the other hand indeed, as Mark remarks, there are other banned ideas, that we're not allowed to express about critically: the nazi crimes. It's the same thing: denying something that is proved to be true, and both Armenian genocide and the nazi camps are.
As to if it is right to make that a crime... is it really about expressing ideas, opinions, or rather lying about very grave facts that are proved, and supporting those lies from State level. This is not a delict d'opinion : what is there to opine about, when things are perfectly well known ?

On another line, all over the Western Europe you get a hard political correctness slap if you try to explain nazism, or view it from any other perspective than that of a "hellish monstruosity" kind. People aren't really over what German occupation meant and that, by the way, blinds them to other even worse cases. I'd strongly support such a law on the genocides inflicted by Stalin on occupied nations after WW2, that extended over a far longer period and killed more people, with a degree of savageness that outperforms Auschwitz.
(but then the French, always fond of communism's social aura, would never do that, do they)

[dada]

yeah, what an horrible country , where you cannot deny a genocide that occurred, and that in this infamous republic's schoolls, underage girls cannot wear the veil, hijab or burka they so badly disserve.

has somebody ever try to walk on his hands?

[Flocon]

There's the armenian lobby in France yes but this move by the French National Assembly may also be seen as an attempt to make it nearly impossible for Turkey to adhere to the EU. A vast majority of the population opposes this idea but politicians and technocrats in Bruxelles simply ignore the will of the people. Sounds familiar on the other side of the Channel?
This text is far from being a law, it has to be approved by the Senate in the same terms than by the National Assembly. Not sure it will be. Then decrees enacting said law have to be made public in the "Journal Officiel" and when the ministers in charge don't want the laws to be effective they simply don't publish the decrees...
It is more symbolic than anything else, a message both to the Armenians and the Turks.
As F. Schnittger says, nobody has ever been sentenced to jail in France for "discussing" the Holocaust. The law for that latter "crime" is called the "Loi Gayssot" after the name of the communist MP who promoted it in the 90'.

[maggie g]

It seems to me there has been an opinion comment in the past year concerning the 'crime' of denying the holocaust. The idea basically was that making this a crime is taking away the moral high ground from the Jews. People feel sympathy for the Jews because they were victims. But when people can go to jail for denying the holocaust, THEY become victims, and it makes the Jews look like oppressors. So basically the idea backfires.

It has nothing to do with whether or not there was a genocide against the Armenians or the Jews, it's just that making a law about it seems to remove their victim status and make it more difficult to feel sympathy for them.

And then every other group that has ever been victimized wants the same status, and it becomes a competition, and the whole idea looks shoddy.

[Rick]

What is it about French people that alienates the English, and not just the English? It's the way they presume to preach to the rest of us.
I wish those self-righteous politicians had kept in mind France's own troubled history.

Take, for instance, the manner in which liberation from the Nazis was celebrated in Sétif, Algeria, in 1945. The French state, having itself recently been liberated (not least by the efforts of various "pays anglo-saxons"!) took exception to the way the indigenous population wanted to join in the fun... with consequences that were to prove fatal for between 10 and 15 thousand Algerians - at least!

Or take again the events that occurred in Paris in October 1961, where a certain Maurice Papon was involved; or take the "Vél d'Hiv" in 1942.

There is something shameless, as well as ridiculous, about the events of this week

[john gregory Flinn]

...would you please tell us if anyone has been taken to prison for such conviction on denying the Holocaust ? I must say I do not think so..."

Yes they have. David Irving languishes in an Austrian jail for that crime. David Irving is a well-known British historian and author. He fell foul of an American jewess, which led to his trial and imprisonment in Austria.

For maggie g - hear, hear!

[maggie g]

John Gregory Flinn,

yes, I think it was at the time of the trial of David Irving that I read that comment on the inadvisability of sending people to jail for denying the holocaust. I was in a rush this morning and couldn't think of his name. There's another one too, a Swiss-Canadian historian, I think, whose name starts with Z maybe, who also denies the holocaust

[Gareth]

I don't get it, why is everyone up in arms over this law when no one is up in arms over laws in almost every European country about holocaust denial?
People have gone to jail over denying the holocaust, so what should stop people going to jail for denying the Armenian genocide?
Oh yes, I forgot, it's because everyone has big business contracts in Turkey and we don't want to anger them do we.
Either repeal them both or accept them both, either way it'll be the same. Free speech per se does not exist, as holocaust deniers found out when they took their cases to the European court.
Gareth
http://www.paris-link-home.com

[M Stolz]

Perhaps the Turkish parliament might want to consider a bill that would make it a crime to deny that France carried out genocide against the Vendée in 1793 (300 000 massacred).

[olcer]

Since we have so many historians all over the world who are giving their opinions freely, I wanted to put a document that the REAL PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS signed.

Cheers ;)

BERNARD LEWIS Professor of Near Eastern History Princeton
STANFORD SHAW Professor of History University of California

"As for the charge of "genocide," no signatory of this statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region. The weight of evidence so far uncovered points in the direct of serious inter communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslim and Christian irregular forces), complicated by disease, famine, suffering and massacres in Anatolia and adjoining areas during the First World War."

[henri]

Rick: The French government recognised the massacre of Setif ( which was initially caused by killing of french colons by algerians, and in no ways got up to 10 000 casualties i'm afraid , even though i recognise it was a savage repression), also officialy recognised the "rafle du vel d'hiv", and sent Maurice Papon to jail for what he did during WW2. So yes French politicians have this in mind and in no ways try to deny the somber elements of our history, whereas turkey keeps denying the genocide ( 1,5 millions people killed) and send to prison everyone that says the genocide did happen. I am against this law but English are too frequently tempted to immediately take position against everything the French do or says, because they think we are all arrogant and stupid and we should have listened to british people when they told us that the european union was bound to fail and that we should have followed them in Irak to find Saddam's WMD. However, I am personally against this law because i think it could annihilate efforts of reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, and that history must be made by historians, not politicians. Thats why i was also against chirac's law about positives effects of colonisation. The right thing to do would be for historians to make serious research works about the genocide, so that no one could deny it.

[Isabelle]

I think, as far as I follow the debate here, there are two fundamental questions arising from the question whether to forbid denying the genocide against the Armenians by law or not.

The first is:
Where draw the limits between freedom of speech and that of protecting the possibility for the victims to claim their victimhood.

The second is: how to define what genocide is and who has the right to define massacres as genocides. Which criteria are to apply and so on.

I must admit I have no answer to both questions. But keen to hear your thoughts.

[riviera]

This is just one more myth about French democracy and it's propagation that is slowly eroding in the eyes of the world thanks to the advent of real time news, the blogosphere and certainly the fact that the French themselves, normally apprehensive of a too vocal criticism of their governemnent and public services, are becoming less afraid to voice their opinions having finally understood that there are other countries that exist where simple elements of freedom of speech exist that the French can't even begin to comprehend.

[Francois Bouqueau]

Cher Charles ,
Tout d'abord je me permets de vous écrire en français sachant que vous vivez à Paris depuis des années et que vous avez été aussi en poste à Bruxelles .Je pense donc que la langue de Molière n'as plus de secret pour vous .
Je suis un très fidéle lecteur du Times et de votre blog mais on peut dire , que certains jours , la lecture de votre blog m'énérve très fort : quand j'ai lu votre papier sur la loi concernant le génocide arménien et les méchants policiers français qui seront prêts à vous arrêter, si vous émettez un doute sur la réalité du génocide , j'ai envie de vous dire en utilisant le langage de mes enfants :
Arrête mon vieux , tu déconnes un max !!!
Je pense connaitre relativement bien l'angleterrre et les anglais et au cours de mes fréquents séjours en angleterre je rencontre une multitude de gens charmants pour qui le frogbashing n'est pas leur passe-temps favori.
Je ne parle pas des journalistes des tabloids car , pour utiliser leur niveau et leur langage , je ne vois pas d'autre usage pour leurs papiers qu'un usage que la décence française interdit d'expliciter....................
Mais de la part d'un journaliste réputé comme vous écrivant dans un journal intelligent comme le Times , s'il vous plait arrêtez un peu et essayez de faire évoluer les choses .Expliquez donc à vos lecteurs que les français adorent l'Angleterre et les anglais (Je ne parle pas des anglaises .....)mais que souvent ils se sentent comme des amoureux trompés et déçus .Critiquez la France tant que vous voulez mais créez donc le british fencing instead of the bristish boxing !!
Aprés cette lettre qui m'as permis de me défouler , jattends mon cher Charles , votre prochain blog avec impatience ..
très cordialement
François BOUQUEAU
VERSAILLES
francois.bouqueau@wanadoo.fr

[Valentin]

Flocon says: "A vast majority of the population opposes this idea but politicians and technocrats in Bruxelles simply ignore the will of the people."

Not so sure. Rulers are there to see for the greater good of the people (*especially* when people don't realize what that greater good is), and NOT to follow the flock ! (and of course they can get fired on next elections if they don't manage to change the public opinion).
Bruxelles is seen as unelected bureaucrats because the national govs blamed them every time they had to take an impopular measure (like reigning in deficits).

Maggie, about victims losing their victim status. I was about to say there is that story of the victim and oppressor tending to interchange roles.
But I think the problem is how to apply these laws, not the laws themselves.

People do get angry and tend to lose sympathy when they see militant jewish or extreme left-wing organizations acting like ward dogs and chasing everyone daring to cross their ideological basis.

This is why commedian Dieudonné story was so interesting. I think he was right all along, yet he's be sued and sued again for pretendedly denying the Holocaust (or acting racist - or both of them! :)).

[Paul Whitfield]

So 'France Votes...' does it? Well, only 125 of the Deputies, a miserable 18 per cent did! This kind of thing has aptly been described as 'the politics of the jackal', going around snapping opportunistically at juicy little issues for purely gestural, populist reasons. It's a sad day for France and freedom of expression.

[unkle]

I am glad to see that David Irving is not in jail in France (since France seems to be the subject of this blog....). So my question remains: is there any one in jail in France for denial of the Holocaust ?

Just to know a little more about Irving, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving seems to me a good starting place, in particular with the fact that for many denial-ers, history and politics are very confused....

[Maggie G]

Unkle,

In answer to your question: Mr Bremner says above, "Several people have been convicted in France in recent years for denying the Holocaust", but he doesn't give any details.

[Gareth]

Maggie G - I know he didn't go to jail, but Le Pen was charged with holocaust denial wasn't he? I think he was fined...

[john gregory Flinn]

For unkle; sorry to be pedantic but you did not specify France or anywhere else in your original question!

[M Stolz]

You read it on this blog first!

Et si les Turcs punissaient la négation du génocide vendéen ?
Par Henri Amouroux *.
Le Figaro.fr
Publié le 28 novembre 2006

« Ce n'est pas l'affaire des hommes politiques que d'imposer leur vérité », selon Henri Amouroux.
Que dirions-nous ? Oui, que dirions-nous si le Parlement turc votait une loi interdisant sous peine d'amende, voire de prison, la négation du génocide vendéen de 1792-1794 ? Nous dirions, sans doute, que cela ne le regarde pas ; qu'il doit d'abord s'occuper de l'histoire de son pays... du génocide arménien, par exemple, et que sa volonté d'interdire, en Turquie, la négation d'un événement historique qui s'est déroulé en France, dont on peut débattre librement chez nous, le nier, ou en excuser les excès, est insupportable.

Et nous aurions raison.