Turks protest outside French parliament ahead of Genocide denial bill vote

Several thousand Franco-Turks demonstrated in central Paris Thursday ahead of a parliamentary vote on a bill that would make it a crime to deny the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide, Reuters reported.

Tension has risen between Paris and Ankara in the last week over the draft law put forward by members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's party that will be put to a vote around lunchtime.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan wrote a letter to Sarkozy last week warning political and economic relations would suffer grave consequences if the bill is passed.

"I don't understand why France wants to censor my freedom of expression," Yildiz Hamza, president of the Montargis association that represents 700 Turkish families in France told Reuters outside the National Assembly. "Every five years there is this sort of debate because elections are approaching."

When the debate began, public benches were filled with Turks and Armenians. Police strengthened their presence inside the chamber to head off any possible disorders.

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government.

Successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the charge of genocide is a direct insult to their nation. Ankara argues that there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in the area.

Ankara sees the bill, proposed by 40 deputies from Sarkozy's party, is a blatant attempt at winning the votes of 500,000 ethnic Armenians in France in next year's elections, limits freedom of speech and is an unnecessary meddling by politicians in a business best left to historians.

Police said about 3,000 demonstrators were already on site with as many as 10,000 expected during the day, which also marks 32 years since a Turkish diplomat was assassinated by Armenian militants in central Paris.