Marseille, France // France and Turkey could be heading for a new period of tension after a declaration by the French president that he is committed to making the denial of Armenian genocide punishable in law.
François Hollande moved quickly to reassure a French Armenian group of his intentions after his foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, appeared to rule out any attempt to revive a law that was passed by parliament but then held to be unconstitutional.
After meeting his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, Mr Fabius hailed a "new era" in Franco-Turkish relations and said it would be impossible for France to revive the law if the outcome was likely to be the same.
French Armenians are satisfied that the president's commitment to them represents the true French position.
The bill, which was passed by both houses of the French parliament, provided for sentences of up to one year's imprisonment and a €45,000 (Dh202,775) fine for denial of genocides recognised by the state. Since the Holocaust was the subject of existing law, the measure effectively applied to the slaughter of Armenians in the dying stages of the Ottoman Empire.
Varying international studies have put the number of deaths, during and just after the First World War, at between 600,000 and 1,500,000. Modern Turkey indignantly rejects the term "genocide" and retaliated with sanctions against France after the parliamentary votes.
Economic, political and military cooperation was frozen but the sanctions were lifted after the ruling of France's constitutional court that the proposed law breached the French constitution's attachment to freedom of expression.
France is home to an Armenian community of up to 500,000 people, who are part of a worldwide diaspora estimated at more than seven million. Community leaders are highly vocal despite their relatively modest electoral influence and France formally recognised the massacres of nearly a century ago as genocide in 2001 without identifying the perpetrator.
Mr Davutoglu said in an interview with the French newspaper Libération that for a parliament to decide on historical questions "in accusing Turkey of genocide" was unacceptable.
"Turkey is ready to confront all aspects of its history," he said. However, he believed France's new socialist administration would "have the wisdom not to reopen this file".
The election of Mr Hollande, and his party's subsequent success in gaining an absolute majority in the national assembly to add to control of the senate, or upper house, led to an immediate improvement in relations between Paris and Ankara.
Turkey resented the policies of former president Nicolas Sarkozy. This animosity was inspired not only by his support for the genocide bill, which passed its final parliamentary hurdle in January before the constitutional hitch arose, but by his hostility to Turkish membership of the European Union.
Mr Hollande does not favour a French referendum on the issue during his first five-year term. But this is consistent with Ankara's own view of the appropriate timetable.
Mr Davutoglu told Libération he was optimistic, after positive meetings at presidential and ministerial levels, that the "turbulence" and "climate of crisis" of previous years and especially months were artificial.
He said Mr Sarkozy had considered growing Turkish influence in the Middle East, North Africa and southern Europe to be at France's expense. "I believe on the contrary that we are not adversaries but allies with obvious synergy," he added.
But any warm glow the Turkish minister may have felt after his meeting with Mr Fabius will have given way to cooler reflection after the president decided to reaffirm his position on the genocide bill.
Mr Hollande telephoned Franck Papazian, the co-president of the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organisations in France (CCAF) following the Fabius-Davutoglu meeting after another of its leaders had denounced the French minister's comment as a "betrayal". The Elysée later confirmed that the president had given a promise to stand by his pre-election commitments.
The CCAF said in a statement: "Francois Hollande has again expressed his willingness to propose a bill to suppress the denial of the Armenian genocide, as he had said during his campaign and even before."
There remains room for manoeuvre. Following the constitutional court judgment, officials are conducting a study on whether action to penalise denial of genocide should take the form of a new law as previously proposed.
It is not clear what alternatives would then be available to reflect wide political support for genocide denial to be an offence. If little scope is found for legislation that does not contradict the constitutional right to free expression, Mr Hollande could be able to argue that his hands are tied - whatever level of anger felt by the Armenian lobby.
It may be at the back of the president's mind that amicable Franco-Turkish relations are mutually important. As well as military cooperation, there is significant trade interest. By 2010 figures, France is Turkey's fifth biggest export market and its sixth largest source of imports, with a surplus of €860 million in France's favour.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Company name: Play:Date
Launched: March 2017 on UAE Mother’s Day
Founder: Shamim Kassibawi
Based: Dubai with operations in the UAE and US
Sector: Tech
Size: 20 employees
Stage of funding: Seed
Investors: Three founders (two silent co-founders) and one venture capital fund
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2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
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Race card:
6.30pm: Baniyas (PA) Group 2 Dh195,000 1,400m.
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 1,400m.
7.40pm: Handicap (TB) Dh190,000 1,200m.
8.15pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 1,200m.
8.50pm: Rated Conditions (TB) Dh240,000 1,600m.
9.20pm: Handicap (TB) Dh165,000 1,400m.
10pm: Handicap (TB) Dh175,000 2,000m.
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
'Munich: The Edge of War'
Director: Christian Schwochow
Starring: George MacKay, Jannis Niewohner, Jeremy Irons
Rating: 3/5
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
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Price: From Dh98,800
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SPECS
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European arms
Known EU weapons transfers to Ukraine since the war began: Germany 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Luxembourg 100 NLAW anti-tank weapons, jeeps and 15 military tents as well as air transport capacity. Belgium 2,000 machine guns, 3,800 tons of fuel. Netherlands 200 Stinger missiles. Poland 100 mortars, 8 drones, Javelin anti-tank weapons, Grot assault rifles, munitions. Slovakia 12,000 pieces of artillery ammunition, 10 million litres of fuel, 2.4 million litres of aviation fuel and 2 Bozena de-mining systems. Estonia Javelin anti-tank weapons. Latvia Stinger surface to air missiles. Czech Republic machine guns, assault rifles, other light weapons and ammunition worth $8.57 million.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
