Epress.am News from Armenia
France’s new law punishing denial of genocide (including the Armenian Genocide) was put on hold Tuesday after politicians opposed to the legislation demanded that its constitutionality be examined, the Hurriyet Daily News reports, citing AFP.
Turkey reacted furiously last week when the Senate approved the law which threatens with jail anyone in France who denies that the 1915 killings in Anatolia amounted to genocide.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office brushed off angry threats of retaliation by Turkey and vowed to enforce the law within a fortnight.
But on Tuesday two separate groups of French politicians who oppose the legislation — from both the Senate and the lower house of parliament — said they had formally requested the Constitutional Council to examine the law.
The groups said they each had gathered more than the minimum 60 signatures required to ask the council to test the law’s constitutionality.
“This is an atomic bomb for the Elysee (Sarkozy’s office) which didn’t see it coming,” said deputy Lionel Tardy, who said that most of the 65 signatories from the lower house were, like him, from Sarkozy’s UMP party.
The council is obliged to deliver its judgement within a month, but this can be reduced to eight days if the government deems the matter urgent.