What has happened since December could appropriately be called the culmination of stupidity. One senator, Sophie Joissains of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP or Union for a Popular Movement), elected from Bouches-du-Rhône — the county with the most vituperative Armenian community of France — even expressed regret that the Treaty of Sèvres was never implemented. On the other hand, if in the National Assembly chairman of the Franco-Turkish Friendship group, Michel Diefenbacher, was a bit alone in maintaining honor by his good speech delivered against the Boyer bill, a significant number of members of parliament fought the text fiercely in the Senate, accumulating motions of dismissal, cancellation of amendments and speeches to defend their position.

The responsibility falls primarily on Nicolas Sarkozy, who pressured the UMP group to either abstain from voting or vote for the bill. Indeed, the main change in comparison to the vote of May 4, 2011, when the previous Armenian bill was rejected, is the change of votes within the UMP: 19 voted against, but 137 did so on May 4, 2011; 56 abstained, but only 10 did during the preceding vote; 57 voted for, but only nine did the last year. The Socialist group was pressured as well, but the results were much more mixed: On May 4, 2011, 21 voted against the bill, 39 for and 55 abstained; on January 23, 2012, 26 voted against, 56 for and 48 abstained. In addition to the courageous fight of the Socialist chairman of the Law Committee, who presented in vain a motion of dismissal, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Jean-Louis Carrère, also a Socialist, repeatedly expressed his anger against the bill and voted accordingly. Other examples can be provided.

We have not been closer to a rupture in Turkish-French relations since the Ankara Agreement of 1921. Regardless, paradoxically, the crisis can be resolved by the collapse of Armenian nationalism in France. Indeed, the Boyer bill is totally unconstitutional (a violation of free speech, among other rights) and is backed by a January 2001 law of that recognizes the unsubstantiated “Armenian genocide” claims. Article 34 of the French Constitution precisely defines the scope of the law and there is no legal value for simple statements. The jurisprudence of the Constitutional Council is clear: When two laws are closely connected, and when someone is apprehended for having violated one of them, the council can check both; if an article of law is pure rhetoric, it is simply censored. As a result, if 60 senators (among the 86 who voted against) take the issue to the Constitutional Council, the two bills will be thrown out. If not, the first person to be charged could file a Priority Question of Constitutionality; it would take more time, but the result would be exactly the same. In any case, the Armenian nationalist leaders would have to explain to their activists why they vehemently supported the suicidal second bill. The strident hostility of most editorialists, of many historians, jurists and other intellectuals as well as many ordinary citizens, shows that the throwing out of these bills would be welcomed. For the moment, the Turkish government’s reactions are relatively quiet, chiefly because of this constitutionality problem. That is why we can hope that the Armenian nationalists will not completely achieve their traditional objective: to create crisis between Turkey and other countries.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) joined the Italian Fascists and the Nazi regime in the 1930s not only for ideological reasons, but also with the hope of sparking a war with Ankara. The ARF shamelessly joined the USSR in 1972 to participate in the destabilization of a NATO member. Since 1987, hindering the Turkish candidacy to the EU has been one of the main objectives of Armenian nationalist groups.

On the other hand, it would be totally wrong for the Turkish side to simply wait in the hope that the Constitutional Council finishes off Armenian nationalism in France. Turkey believed Armenian nationalism was dead in 1923, for example, but it was not. More particularly for the current French case, the pressures on the Socialist group are mostly due to the close relations between ARF leader Mourad Papazian and the Socialist candidate for the presidency, François Hollande. There is no miraculous method through which to seize the current situation and thoroughly crush Armenian nationalism in France. However, there are partial, efficient solutions. One of them is to organize, by all legal means, the defeat of a significant number of deputies who voted for the Boyer bill in the National Assembly. Another is to finally translate into French the main scholarly contributions to the Armenian question and other sensitive aspects of Ottoman and Turkish history published during the last 20 years — those of Ferudun Ata, Edward J. Erickson, Yusuf Halaçoğlu, Guenter Lewy, Justin McCarthy and others. More generally, relations with France (the second-largest investor in Turkey) deserve new, additional, permanent structures and, in such a perspective, US-Turkish relations could provide a certain inspiration.

Between 1921 and 1922 the Franco-Turkish alliance was restored, in great part by two ministers of foreign affairs: Raymond Poincaré from the center right and Aristide Briand from the center left. We could have a kind of new Raymond Poincaré with Alain Juppé. A new Aristide Briand is wanted.

*Maxime Gauin is a researcher at the International Strategic Research

Organization (USAK) in Ankara.