May 5, 2011 - 12:08 AMT
Without Libya, French Senate’s hands would be less tied, expert says

Politics is the art of possibilities. In current conditions, France won’t benefit from promoting the Armenian issue, a political expert said.

“The involvement in Libya military operation drastically opposed Paris to the Muslim world. With the presidential elections under way, Senate is careful as to their policies to avoid losing Muslim part of their electorate,” Sergey Markedonov told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. “Without Libya, the law-makers would have had their hands less tied. Thus, the real policy has once again pushed the restoration of the historic justice to the background, which has long become a foreign policy rule.”

Still, as the expert noted, Senate’s killing the Genocide denial criminalization bill does in no way cancel the Fifth French Republic acts recognizing 1915 massacres as Genocide.

The French Senate on May 4 rejected a bill penalizing the denial of Armenian Genocide. The bill, which was recently rejected by the French Senate Constitution Commission, envisioned five years in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 euros for people on French soil who deny the Armenian Genocide.