France holds first ‘Armenia genocide’ remembrance day, despite fury from Turkey’s President Erdogan
- Turkey has always denied that the mass killings in 1915 amounted to genocide
France is to hold its first “national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide” on Wednesday in a move that has already angered Turkey which has denounced French President Emmanuel Macron over the decision.
Troops from the Ottoman Empire – which preceded modern-day Turkey – were responsible for massacres and forced deportations of Armenians from 1915, but Turkey has always denied that the mass killings amounted to genocide.
France was the first European country to recognise the massacres as genocide in 2001 and Macron announced the national day of remembrance in February this year, saying that his country “knows how to look history in the face”.
That drew a furious response from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who called Macron a “political novice” and urged him to focus on massacres committed by French troops during the colonial era.
Armenians commemorate the massacres on April 24 – the day in 1915 when thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of harbouring nationalist sentiment and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up.