Armenian Genocide Resource Center: France

Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

24.3.16

1969) ECtHR Perinçek vs. Switzerland - Constitutional Council of France regarding the judgment of “Gayssot Act”

Judgment of ECtHR in the case of Perinçek vs. Switzerland concerning the freedom of expression on 17 December 2013

Press Release regarding the judgment of ECtHR in the case of Perinçek vs. Switzerland concerning the freedom of expression on 17 December 2013

Judgment of Grand Chamber of ECtHR in Perinçek vs. Switzerland concerning the freedom of expression on 15 October 2015

Press release regarding the judgment of Grand Chamber of ECtHR in Perinçek vs. Switzerland concerning the freedom of expression on 15 October 2015

Judgment of the Constitutional Council of France in “Gayssot Act” on 8 January 2016 which punishes the denial of Holocaust

Legal opinion of the Constitutional Council of France regarding the judgment of “Gayssot Act” which was delivered on 8 January 2018.

Judgment of the Constitutional Council of France in the revocation of legal regulation which punishes the denial of events which are not judged as genocide by a competent court

Judgment of ECtHR in the case of Mercan and the others vs. Switzerland on 28 November 2017.

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15.5.12

3354) François Hollande And The Turks

Maxime Gauin

There is a historical trend in the main Socialist leaders of France alternating their attitudes vis-à-vis the Turks, especially if the Armenian question is involved. Jean Jaurès (1859-1914) diffused the Armenian nationalist propaganda in the 1890s, in ignorance, then . . .

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27.1.12

3336) Diaspora & Pipe Blowers -Aya / Sassounian:-20 Steps Turkey Could Take to Worsen Relations with France-

Harut Sassounian's Article in Black
Sukru Server Aya's Comments in Blue

Turkey’s leaders threatened France for months with various reprisals should the French government pass a law making it illegal to deny the Armenian Genocide.

France or Sarkozy has risked in throwing gigantic economic benefits and support of 75 million Turks and huge present investments in Turkey, versus 500.000 Armenian votes to stay in power from the diaspora of one of the poorest countries in the world whose population

Is leaving the home country en mass, to find jobs in neighboring countries! Estimates are that about 60-70.000 “tourist Armenians work illegally in Turkey” and they may be deported in retaliation. These illegal workers have families, children in Turkish Armenian schools and they will be the ones to pay for what the Dashnakist government repeats a century later.

Ignoring Turkish threats and blackmail, the French Parliament adopted a bill on Dec. 22, 2011, criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide. The Senate followed suit on Jan. 23, 2012, with a vote of 127-86, after a 7-hour debate. The new law, to be signed soon by President Nicolas Sarkozy, carries a one-year jail term and a fine of ~$60,000 for anyone denying the genocide. Every single member of the French legislature, even those voting against the bill, stated that they had no doubt whatsoever about the facts of the Armenian Genocide.

Mr Harut applauds this absolutely nonsense law, paradoxical to human rights of free expression. There are about 7 billion people on this planet that worship their God and believe that they will be welcomed in heaven!

Is there any penal law if I say “I do not believe in these imaginations marketed by clergies, there is no God, no heaven… A human’s life is no different than an animal’s or a plant. You have a seed, growth and death. Why my flower or cat does not have a paradise, but I have a promised one…if I do this or that ritual. Is it because I am wiser or more stupid than my cat? What will be my penalty? Shall I be sent to Inquisition court and torched alive because I don not believe in anything which is not proven? Well, under the French law of imposters of democracy, I can refute God and paradise in which most of the world believes, but I cannot refute the Armenian palaver they successfully sell for over a century which has become an industry of hatred and grudge. . . .

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28.12.11

3334) French Senate Bill On Criminalizing 'Genocide'

Armenians in Yerevan thank the French Ambassador to Armenia for the French Senate's decision to criminalize Genocide Denial. Includes video from the celebration Monday Night in Paris.

The Revenge Of Law On Politics By Maxime Gauin

Decision Of The French Constitutional Council

Nicolas Sarkozy, Victim of Himself, By Maxime Gauin, USAK, 14 Feb 2012

French Historian Gauin: "The Decision Will Be Blow to Armenian Nationalism in France"

France-Turkey: The Night Will End by Maxime Gauin*

Ten Suggestions For Turkey To Face Its Own History By Hayk Demoyan

US Next In Line -Armenian Genocide in the US Capital-

Now, The Armenians Are Making Us Walk The ‘Deportation March’

Turkey Prefers Fistfight To Legal Battle With France

French Senate Approves Bill Criminalizing 'Genocide' Rejection

France-Turkey: What Went Wrong? by Maxime Gauin

Mr Sarkozy's European Travesty by Sukru Server Aya

On the Criminalization of the Denial of Genocides by Ara Papian

ASALA's Day in the French National Assembly by Maxime Gauin

Resisting Nicolas Sarkozy by Maxime Gauin

The French Law: The First Stage by Ömer Engin LÜTEM

Crisis With France And Armenian Diaspora Activities In The Light Of 2015 by Aslan Yavuz Sir

France-Turkey: Perpetual Crisis 20 December 2011, by Ömer Engin LÜTEM

French Historian Maxime Gauin: 'Mr. Sarkozy is Making a Miscalculation' By Nihal Cizmecioglu

Spit On Sarkozy's Face And Say He Was Trying To Score Political Gains Through . .

Break Or Save Franco-Turkish Relations?

Alain Juppé Showed the Right Way to Solve the Armenian Question

. .

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14.10.11

3324) Video: Sarkozy In Armenia

29 October 2011 Update
Sarkozy in the Caucasus By Kamer Kasim

© This content Mirrored From http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com

By Ömer Engin LÜTEM
It has been a surprise for the Armenians as much as for the Turks when French President Nicolas Sarkozy, during his visit to Armenia on 6-7 October, called on Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide allegations and indicated that if not, France would adopt the draft resolution on punishment of genocide denial. Thus, despite the fact that France had always been a supporter of the Armenian theses all along, no French statesman had gone this far and no one had particularly called on Turkey and assigned it a certain date to accept the Armenian genocide claims. . . .

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3323) October 1921, 1968, 2011: The New Ankara Agreement and Its Context

By Maxime Gauin
JTW Columnist
11 October 2011

On October 20, 1921, France was the first major power to sign a peace treaty with the Kemalists recognizing Ankara’s government, after the first de facto recognition of May 1920. France even provided weapons and ammunition, which were used against the Greek invasion forces. Henry Franklin-Bouillon, a Centrist politician and chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee, was the French chief negotiator. Contrary to legend, Franklin-Bouillon did not make unilateral concessions, still less by his own initiatives. On the contrary, mutual concessions were made, and Franklin-Bouillon was the (efficient executioner) of a policy decided by Aristide Briand, President of the Ministers Council (Prime minister), after a gradual change in both political milieu and public opinion.[1] The successor of Briand, Raymond Poincaré, sent a friend of Turks, Colonel Louis Mougin, as a representative to Ankara in 1922.[2] . . .

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5.3.09

2765) Terrorist Renaissance: France, 1980-1983 by Samuel T. Francis

© This content Mirrored From http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com With the possible exception of Northern Ireland, there is no country in Western Europe in which terrorist violence has been more intense since 1980 than France. In the 1970s France escaped most of the more dramatic and lethal terrorist . . enactments that disrupted West Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Great Britain. The French New Left did not breed terrorist movements on the scale of the Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, or the Red Brigades, and separatist movements in Brittany and Corsica never perpetrated violence on the level of the IRA and ETA. Nor did Palestinian and other transnational terrorists strike French targets with the same ruthlessness they displayed in the Munich massacre, the OPEC Ministers' kidnapping, or the more notorious skyjackings of the 1960s and 1970s.

Today French immunity to terrorism, domestic and international, is a thing of the past. Since 1980 a series of increasingly violent attacks by a number of different groups has rendered France, in the words of the London Economist, "easy water for terrorist fish."1 Between May and mid-August, 1982, twenty persons were killed and over forty injured by terrorist attacks in French territory;2 there have been more casualties since, and the governments of at least two countries (Israel and Turkey) have accused France of being unwilling or unable to take appropriate counter-measures.3ironically, the escalation of terrorism in France has occurred at the same time that Italy and Germany have displayed improvements in controlling it. As Ferdinando Imposimato, the magistrate directing the inquiry into the Aldo Moro kidnapping, has said, "International terrorism has been strangled in Germany, and has suffered serious setbacks in Italy. Driven out, or almost, from these countries, it has taken refuge and is recuperating in Paris."4

It is also ironic that the most notable terrorist actions in France have not been perpetrated by Frenchmen and often have not been directed at the French state or society. While the separatist groups continue to exist and to use violence, both of the main Corsican and Breton movements have generally been quiescent in recent years.5With one exception, both the extreme Left and the extreme Right in France have also avoided large-scale violence. The threat today derives principally from immigrant or internationally active elements that seek revenge, "liberation," or media attention by targeting their traditionally identified enemies, who happen to be located in a country that is providing inadequate security against such terrorist attacks.

The exception is the leftist group known as Action Directe, or AD. Reportedly developing from the fusion of Maoist and anti-Franco activists in the late 1970s, AD has launched attacks on a variety of targets ,predicated on a range of issues: nuclear power, French foreign policy, anti-semitism, and the United States-Israeli relationship. Prior to its being banned by the government on August 18, 1982, AD was believed to consist of some fifty members, with a high proportion of women and foreigners, and it has been definitely linked with the Italian Red Brigades and the Basque ETA. In October 1982, two members of AD were arrested in Paris, and documents in their possession and handwriting were held to show the complicity of the group in terrorist attacks previously claimed by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Front (LARF).6

LARF has claimed responsibility for some of the most violent and dramatic terrorist attacks in France: the attempted murder of U.S. diplomat Christian A. Chapman on November 12, 1981; the actual assassinations of U.S. military attaché Charles R. Ray on January 18 and of Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov on April 3, 1982; the bombing of a car belonging to an Israeli diplomat on September 17, 1982, in which five persons were killed; and two bombings directed at U.S. and Israeli embassy personnel on August 21, 1982, in which two policemen were killed and over forty persons were injured.

Documents in the possesion of Frederic Oriach, a known leader of AD, show that AD claimed partial responsibility for the August 21 bombings. This evidence led Joseph Franceschi, Secretary of State for security, to affirm that there was "proof that Action Directe is supported logistically and tactically by international terrorist organizations. . . anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian organization." 7

Anonymous phone calls attributed to AD responsibility for the machine-gun and hand grenade attack on the Jewish restaurant of Jo Goldenberg in Paris on August 9, 1982, an attack in which six persons were killed (including two Americans) and which has been called "the bloodiest anti-Semitic attack in France since World War II."8 The role of AD, however, was later denied, although it did claim responsibility for follow-up attacks in the following days, and ballistic evidence showed that the Polish machine-gun used in the restaurant attack was of the same kind used in similar terrorist acts in London and Vienna that were claimed by the Fatah Revolutionary Command of Sabri al-Banna, also known under his nom de guerre as Abu Nidal. The FRC, previously known as "Black June," is currently based in Damascus and probably enjoys Soviet as well as Syrian support. Since 1978 it has led an extremist opposition to Yasser Arafat and has been involved in a continuing series of assassinations of pro-Arafat and mainline PLO spokesmen.9

The Syrian connection with French terrorism is of considerable interest. On July 21, 1980, Salah al-Bitar, the former Prime Minister of Syria and the principal opponent of Hafez Assad, was assassinated in Paris. On April 22, 1982, the Paris offices of the pro-Iraqi and antiAssad newspaper Al Watan Al Arabi were targeted by a car-bomb that killed one person and injured forty-six. The French government immediately expelled two Syrian diplomats after the attack. On August 11, 1982, the Iraqi embassy was bombed, injuring six persons. These attacks are in part a continuation of the Middle Eastern feuds of ideological, political, and religious factions within the Arab states and the Palestinian movement. They appear in some cases to overlap with the ideological groups, especially those espousing anti-semitism and anti-Zionism, active in France (and in other countries), and it is difficult to say which elements bear major responsibility for some of the violent acts. It may be noted that the French ambassador to Lebanon was assassinated in September, 1981, and that both Al Watan and other investigators attributed the murder to Lebanese Shiites acting for Syria. Relations between France and Syria deteriorated as a result of the publicity, but probably a more important cause of the deterioration was the strong French tilt to Iraq in July, 1981.

Armenian terrorist groups are also among those foreign elements that have been active in France. As of mid-July, 1983, Armenian terrorists had claimed responsibility for six assassinations of Turkish government officials in Paris and had launched at least fourteen attacks on Turkish targets in France in the previous three years.10 Most of these actions have been the work of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), from the murder of Turkish ambassador Ismail Erez and his driver in Paris in 1975 to the bombing of the Turkish airlines counter at Orly airport on July 15, 1983, in which five persons were killed and over sixty injured. ASALA has been closely tied to Palestinian terrorists, and some authorities have suggested that this Marxist group, which never mentions Soviet domination of most of Armenia and never attacks Soviet personnel or facilities, is covertly supported by the Soviet Union. Some have also suggested that ASALA has been based in Damascus since its expulsion from Beirut in the summer of 1982. Varadjian Garbidjian, arrested by French police for the Orly airport bombing, is a Syrian born Armenian, and in November 1981, an Armenian, Dimitriu Giorgiu, was arrested in connection with the bombing of a synagogue in Paris on October 4, 1980. Giorgiu, linked with ASALA, was released and expelled from France, but his arrest and complicity in anti-semitic terrorism again suggests a linkage among Syrian, Armenian, Palestinian, and indigenous ideological terrorists of the Left and the Right.

The renaissance of terrorism in France is probably not due to any deep-seated changes in French social and intellectual fabric. There has been a turn to the right on the part of some French intellectuals, and this includes (on the fringe) a resurgence of extreme nationalist, xenophobic, and racialist ideologies. But the most notorious terrorism in France in recent years is largely the work of foreign elements that are not reflective of these changes.

The terrorist resurgence in France is more likely due in large part to a simple failure on the part of the Mitterand government to provide adequate constraints on criminal and subversive movements. In the first year of his administration, largely in the name of civil liberties, Mitterand and particularly his Minister of Justice, Robert Badinter, undertook a series of far-reaching reforms that effectively crippled the ability of the state to control and remain informed of terrorist violence. These included the abolition of the death penalty, the dismantlement of the state security court for anti-terrorism, the emancipation of some 6,000 petty criminals, the encouragement of the repeal of Giscard d'Estaing's anti-crime legislation, and the restructuring (some would say the de-structuring) of French intelligence. The appointment of Regis Debray, long known for his association (sometimes unwelcome) with Che Guevara and with other apostles of political violence, as a foreign affairs adviser; official sympathy for Central American insurgents; refusal to arrest or extradite known Spanish terrorists in French territory; and reluctance to modify the traditional asylum granted to political dissidents all tended to communicate or engender a laxity on the part of the government toward terrorists. In foreign affairs, Mitterand tilted sharply toward Iraq, alienating both Syria and Iran and precipitating terrorist attacks in France probably sponsored by both Assad and Khomeini.

By August 1982, with French terrorism becoming the subject of international headlines, a dispute erupted between Badinter and Gaston Deferre, the Minister of the Interior, who urged a harder line. Mitterand did undertake some counter-terrorist measures, notably the appointment of Joseph Franceschi to a Cabinet level post for public security, the imposition of stricter controls on immigrants, and a warning to political exiles to curtail their agitation, but these measures may not be sufficient to deter or control the practitioners of terror.

The lesson learned by Turkey, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and a host of Latin American countries in the past decade -- that violence is the midwife of more violence and that once the chain of terrorism starts, ideologies of revolt and traditions of vengeance will sustain it indefinitely -- appears to have been lost on Mitterand. While other West European states have developed legislation and institutions that provide effective counter-terrorist action consistent with democratic government, France has actually dismantled such institutions, has ignored persistent warnings from other states, and has thereby diminished its own security and the security of the innocent citizens of other states (including Americans) against renewed terrorist attacks.

References:
1. The Economist, August 21, 1982 , p. 37.
2. Time, August 23, 1982 , p. 33.
3. Ibid., New York Times, November 17, 1981 , p. A3.
4. Quoted in Edward Moxon-Browne, "Terrorism in France", Conflict Studies, no. 144 ( 1983 ), p. 3.
5. Breton terrorism was almost completely suppressed in 1978; Corsican terrorism, mainly in the form of bombings, continues and constitutes the most common source of terrorist attacks in France. But the statistical frequency of Corsican bombings has not left the same social and psychic impact created by the less common but more lethal and dramatic violence of anti-semite terrorists of the Left and the Right or of foreign terrorists operating in France.

6. For AD, see Moxon-Browne, Conflict Studies, pp. 22-25; and Foreign Broadcast Information Service/Western Europe, 15 October 1982 , p. K7.

7. Quoted in FBIS/WE, 15 October 1982 , p. KT; see also Washington Times, October 15, 1982.

8. Washington Post, August 10, 1982 , p. Al.

9. Ibid., August 11, 1982, p. A18, and July 15, 1983, pp. A1 and A17; for the background of Abu Nidal and "Black June"," see Samuel T. Francis, "Palestinian Terrorism: The International Connection", Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder Series, No. 69, December 8, 1978 , especially pp. 11-15.

10. Washington Post, July 16, 1983 , p. A16, and July 19, 1983 , p. A9.

World Affairs, 146/1, 1983

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31.1.09

2729) Armenian Thuggery & Intimidation Silenced A Politician Jack Lang

Controversy About After Jack Lang On Armenian Genocide LeMonde 03.02.09

Armenian Lobby: Who Wants To Intimidate Jack Lang? 4Feb2009, Dussardier

* Armenian Genocide: Jack Lang explained 4Feb2009

* Armenian Genocide: The Mea Culpa Of Jack Lang Ignites The Net 4Feb2009

*Ara Toranian, former chairman of the Coordination Committee of Armenian Associations in France (CCAF) wrote a strident article

*Armenian Revolutionary Federation Published A Vitriolic Posts

*CCAF (Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France) Sent A Violent Letter To Jack Lang

:Jack Lang has been silenced, He now works for the Dashnaks

Editors

Controversy About After Jack Lang On The Armenian Genocide LeMonde.fr | 03.02.09 |

Michelle B. 04.02.09 |
The Turks today have even less of repentance - sincere or not - that for a century "on" has never talked about this genocide, it was denied (it still is) by the leaders , so by the manuals and therefore scolairss Turkish public opinion. Are not asked Turkey today to repent of what we're doing their grandparents (or great grand parents), but to recognize the historical truth - simply.

Champignac 04.02.09 |
Abolition of all laws blocking the historical research and debate: a necessity in France.

JL 04.02.09 |
Hop hop, I return my jacket and I appeal to the French, and those easy to fool, to take them to witness my new conversion. Hop hop, I return my jacket!

Marie Claude R. 04.02.09 |
I have no sympathy for Jack Lang, but there are fools who never change their minds. It was not for the law to rule on the history and they are all known as the "memorial" to be abolished. Gradually, freedom of expression is reduced in Europe as a shrinking. Enough!

Philippe B. 04.02.09 |
Building the story is good, the political recognition is better. The millions of deaths in Armenia deserve better than a few lines in a history book, and recognize that genocide is a good way to put pressure on some instances of extremist Turkish power.

Julot 04.02.09 |
The memorial laws are laws freak who terrorize all historians and all supporters of free opinion. Their abolition is an emergency. This is not the legislature to build the history is for historians.

Gerard B. 04.02.09 |
Make judgments about the facts of nearly a century with the current morality is absurd. None of the authors or makers of genocide is alive today to answer for his crimes. How the Turks of today could they have a sincere repentance (otherwise it's tartufferie) acts they did not commit? No, children are neither responsible, nor judges the actions of their fathers. Let the historians decide. And wake up after 85 years is neither glorious nor courageous.

yetto 04.02.09 |
Pitiful contortions of Jack Lang facing a aeropage historians to whom he wished to shine so he returns his jacket. He falls immediately in politics cheap citing concerns for the electoral vote of the law when it comes to facts for a long time. Yes, but the man was invited to Turkey and it seems to have the greatest respect for the official Turkish historians we understand everything!

G. MICHEL 03.02.09 |
What credit granted to a man whose political career will resume at the fete de la musique and for which the history will only return her brushing

michel o. 03.02.09 |
It is true that the laws are a great memorial stupidity. But this man can not exist. Unless the fish pilot dispatched to make the turkey the lever of a negotiation in palestine against an entry in the EU.

rastaman 03.02.09 |
quotation marks! more than a million Armenians died genocide under a process that has served as an example or model to Hitler, saying the same of him. What this politician is able to say or do me hurt.

ROBERT A. 03.02.09 |
Good people are distinguished also by their courage to seek, teach and defend the truth. Especially for crimes against humanity, their prevention, their conviction and penalty. It is a matter that concerns us all. The Jewish Polish lawyer Rafael Lemkin and Turkish historian Taner Akçam have understood. Please read their biographies and their work on genocide. Exercise your freedom to act like them.

JACQUES S. 03.02.09 |
Let's be optimistic, perhaps Jack Lang he understood the futility of laws memorial. If only we had stopped with the law Gayssot instead of open competition memories ... An example: if I say that there were no more deaths among blacks that led to slavery in marine, I may fall on the Law Taubira. But it is true and understandable: the poor slaves had a market value.

Jacquesleborgne 03.02.09 |
But my god what a hypocrite, he returned to his jacket whenever he spoke. What poor politician!

gus 03.02.09 |
let everyone have a free opinion and take a free trial on the facts. Otherwise, tomorrow and the train which advance our jurisprudence, you will be condemned simply for an event called the "great evil", while the standard described as "very very great misfortune."

Collectif VAN + 03.02.09 |
Lang argues: "It was as part of a scientific debate among historians. His beliefs are variable according to the public he addresses? The former Minister of Culture does it not the meaning of the quotes he used in a sentence worthy of the worst deniers: "I voted for the resolution on the recognition, in quotes, can we say (because it is also necessary that historians do their work), the Armenian genocide. "Lamentable!

Occam 03.02.09 |
It's the genocide in quotes ", which ticks. There is a consensus of historians (not Turkish) on the qualification of genocide, then, whether for or against the law, put quotation marks at the term genocide is rather awkward, if not shocking. But perhaps I should put quotation marks at the end of evolution, since some scientists believe not illuminated? There is a threshold when doubt becomes the denial to the obvious.

Thomas W. 03.02.09 |
Oh, overnight, the Turkish power is returned to non grata and the Armenian genocide a forgery, since the misdemeanor Erdogan against Shimon Peres in Davos. Ficelle a large gentlemen.

Aesop! Aesop! 03.02.09 |
Freedom for history, more than ever. Jack Lang came to demonstrate in a statement and a retraction flash that history suffers when politicians take it hostage, whether French, Turkish and Armenian.

lannig 03.02.09 |
Jack Lang does not disagree with his position on the Armenian genocide but rather on the determination by the law of history. I am only because our laws, and is happy, condemn the Nazi Holocaust denial an Act Scho then why not on the Armenian genocide? But eminent historians are fighting the idea of "freeze" the history and what they say must be heard. The article could be read as I quote: "this video has to react." There is a paucity of words in that sentence.

jlecynique 03.02.09 |
I find this kind of legislation shameful for democracy and those who vote should review the meaning of their mandate. and more when it is an event that has nothing to do with our history, what we melons we? it is simply a reflection of the political pressure of some political groups and lobbies who know them and use blackmail. is proper shame, despicable and outrageous.

ALAIN M. 03.02.09 |
The truth does not s'edicte by law even if it's hard for victims.

amf 03.02.09 |
Jack Lang does not question the existence of the Armenian genocide, as cerains Turkish pretend to believe, but the fact that "politics", politicians, mingle in the history and memory by legislating on these issues . There is no official story, there is a duty to remember him as a "historical duty" incumbent on researchers and citizens, not law. I do not like Jack Lang, but then I think his memorial in the debate going in the right direction.

vxnnhmfxd 03.02.09 |
I am not surprised by the reversal of J. LANG on this issue as on others, but here is very serious because the former minister "socialist" seullemnt will not deny but denies the obvious. I weigh that, given his age, Mr. Lang, I appreciated that as Minister of Culture, should be a lack of power, recognition, and I'm amazed that point-like supports and KOUCHNER BESSON clan-SARKOZY. Not everyone can call Lilian Thuram ...

Wily S. 03.02.09 |
The debate is not posed by the extremists on 2 sides. Everything indicates that there really was genocide of Armenians and Turkey is moving slowly to the reconnaisaance thereof. But it does neither a parliament nor a government to tell the story. The criminalization of the denial of Armenian genocide is silly and politically biased (against Turkey's accession to the EU).

EVENING VISITOR 03.02.09 |
This is not the first, it will not last! As Dutronc singing "I return my jacket still on their good side!

gus 03.02.09 |
Any act of memory is a crime against history. Do not let the church care of all religions to define scientific truth does not leave the task to legislators of all stripes to define historical truth as they face political pressure too great, and thus proclaimed Truth becomes highly suspect.

DOM.B. 03.02.09 |
A Tartufferie more the JL as many elephants PS anxious to have a posture that is ds air du Temps passed these laws dictated parl'emotion andthe compassion. Aujourdhui they seem useless because without much impact ( see the reaction of Turkey) without translation practice, but as his fellow amenée hinder historical research or freedom of expression which his apostasy, it seems that there is more joy ds le ciel ... ETC. for many believers on

Armenian Lobby: Who Wants To Intimidate Jack Lang? 4 February 2009, Dussardier Heading France

Notes:
[1] http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?Id_article=48602
[2] http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?Id_article=48686
[3] http://www.collectifvan.org/article.php?R=5&&id=26609
[4] Among them: Edward J. Erickson, "Armenian Massacres: New Records Undercut Old Blame," The Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2006, pp. 67-75 (English translation); Halaçoğlu Yusuf, The Story of 1915. What Happened to the Ottoman Armenians?, Ankara, TTK, 2008, "explains Bernard Lewis," Le Monde, January 1, 1994; Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey. A Disputed Genocide, Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 2005, Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities. The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of Empire, NY, New York University Press, 1983, Justin McCarthy and Carolyn McCarthy, Turks and Armenians. A Manual on the Armenian Question, Washington, ATAA, 1989, Andrew Mango, "Some recent books about the Armenians and the next stage of historiography about Turkish-Armenian Relations", XI. Türk Tarih Kongresi, Ankara, 1994, pp. 1945-1950; Mantran Robert (dir.), Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris, Fayard, 1989, pp. 623-625; Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, New York-London-Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Volume II, ed. revised and corrected, 1978, pp. 314-317; Veinstein Gilles, "Three questions about a massacre," The History, April 1995, and Malcolm E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East. 1792-1923, London, Longman, 1987.

[5] Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, Paris, PUF, 2002, p. 46 Michael M. Gunter, "Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People." A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism, Westport-New York-London, Greenwood Press, 1986 105. See also: http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?Id_article=28016

[6] Heath Lowry, "Breakdonwn of Armenian Terrorist Incidents, 1973-1987", in ATAA, Armenian Allegations: Myth and Reality, A Handbook of Facts and Documents, Washington, 1987.

[7] Heath Lowry, art. cit. Michael Gunter, op. cit., pp. 68-69; ATAA, A Chronicle of Armenian Terrorism in America and Elsewhere, paper presented American justice in 2000, and Françoise Thierry Vareilles Rudetzki, Encyclopedia of international terrorism, Paris, l'Harmattan, 2001, pp. 91 and 293.

[8] Heath Lowry, art. cit.

[9] http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?Id_article=31647

[10] William L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 157-160, 322-325 and 349-350; General Mayewski, The Massacres of Armenia. Photographic fragments and translation, Istanbul, 1916, pp. 11 et seq. (original edition in Russian: Statistics of the provinces of Van and Bitlis, Saint Petersburg, military Printing, 1916).

[11] Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, op. , pp. 2; Kapriel S. Papazian, Patriotism Perverted, Boston, Baikar Press, 1934, p. 24; Guenter Lewy, op. , pp. 32.

[12] S. Kapriel Papazian, op. cit., pp. 13-18 and 68-69; Heath Lowry, "Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Armenian Terrorism: 'Threads of Continuity', in International Terrorism and the Drug Connection, Ankara University Press, 1984 74; Hasan Oktay, "On the assassination of Van Mayor Kapamacyian by the Dasnak Committee, Review of Armenian Studies, I-1, 2002.

[13] See, inter alia: Turkish National Congress, Documents relating to atrocities committed by Armenians on the Muslim population, Istanbul, 1919 Hüseyin Çelik, Görenlerin Gözüyle Van'da Ermeni Mezalimi, Ankara, Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1993, Enver Konukçu , Ermenilerin Yeflilyayla'daki Türk Soyka> r> m>, Ankara, Atatürk Üniversitesi Yayınları Rektörlüğü, 1990, Justin McCarthy, Justin McCarthy, "The Report of Niles and Sutherland," XI. Congresses Türk Tarih, Ankara 1994; Tarafindan Ermeniler yapılan katliam belgeleri, Ankara, 2001; Kara Schemsi, Turks and Armenians to history, Geneva, Imprimerie nationale, 1919, Azmi Süslü, Van, Bitlis, Mus, ve Ermeni Kars'taki Katliamlar, Ankara, Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Rektörlüğü Yayını, 1994.

[14] S. Kapriel Papazian, op. cit., pp. 58-62, and 69-73; Ben Alexander, "Contested Memories, Divided Diaspora," Journal of American Ethnic History, Fall 2007.

[15] John Roy Carlson (Arthur A. Derounian), "The Armenian Displaced Persons", Armenian Affairs, Winter 1949-1950, "Dro, became pro-Nazi hero," L'Humanité, 19 April 1999; Erich Feigl, A myth of terror, Salzburg, Zeitgeschichte, 1991, pp. 224-230; Gaïdz Minassian, op. , pp. 10; Ayan Ozer, "The Armenian-Nazi Collaboration," The Turkish Times, 15 July 1996.

[16] Mikael Varandian, History of the FRA, Paris, Imprimerie de Navarre, 1932, pp. 212-213, cited in S. Kapriel Papazian, op. , pp. 18.

[17] Gaïdz Minassian, op. cit., pp. 28-29, 33-34 and 106 - 114 Michael M. Gunter, op. cit., pp. 55 et seq.

[18] Michael M. Gunter, op. cit., pp. 68-69, see also Gaïdz Minassian, op. cit., pp. 44-45 and 82-86.

[19] http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/terror-case-study.htm

[20] A representative of Boris Yeltsin killed in the North Caucasus ", Le Monde, 3 August 1993; Gaïdz Minassian, Armenian War and Terrorism, op. , pp. 262.

[21] Le Monde, 29 October 1999.

[22] http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/01/2728-photos-nationalist-armenian.html

[23] Today's Zaman, 25 May 2007.

[24] Michael M. Gunter, op. cit., pp. 75-76.

[25] Nathalie Cetina, Terrorism: the history of globalization, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2001, pp. 267-268; Tarık Somer, "Armenian Terrorism and the Narcotic Traffic," in International Terrorism and the Drug Connection, op. cit., pp. 19-27.

[26] See in particular the composition of the CFC: http://www.ccaf.info/item.php?R=1&id=364

[27] Daniel Bermond, "L'affaire Bernard Lewis," History, October 1995.

Armenian Genocide: Jack Lang Explained 4 February 2009 by Stéphane / armenews
Following the article published yesterday by the Nouvel Obs, from the pen of Usul Gauthier, titled "Jack Lang puts quotes in the genocide of Armenians (see below), the reactions of many readers have upset the former minister of culture, explained in a reply sent to the online journal in the following hours, said he was "saddened by the unfair and dishonest campaign orchestrated against me about Armenia. My position is clear. "

Sir,
Did you just think a second that the descendants of victims could themselves be saddened to hear of your statements?

Bernard-Henri Lévy has said and insisted: "History is written".

Jean Eckian
www.inhomage.com

"Jack Lang puts quotes in the genocide of Armenians" by Ursula Gauthier

NOUVELOBS.COM | 03.02.2009 | 12:05

PS He expresses regret for having voted for the resolution recognizing what he describes today as "Armenian genocide in quotation marks. Unanimous indignation of the Armenians in France.

What fly has stung So Jack Lang? A video circulating on the Internet shows the former Minister of Culture to his mea culpa for having passed the law recognizing the Armenian genocide of 1915 - adopted unanimously on 18 January 2001. This is the video of the symposium held in Blois, 11 October 2008 by the Association for Freedom of the story that is campaigning against what are known as memory. Jack Lang first reaffirms its support for the law that penalizes Gayssot the denial of Jewish and Gypsy genocides. However, with a visible contrition, he acknowledged being "doubly guilty of having voted for the resolution recognizing what he describes today as" Armenian genocide in quotation marks.

A "monstrous"

Why "doubling"? Because he was both "member and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly."

Why "in quotes? Because, he said, "We need that historians too do their work."

The tone hardens when it refers to the law criminalizing denial of Armenian Genocide, passed in 2006 by the National Assembly and waiting to be ratified by the Senate. In "offense against the instructions of his own group, Jack Lang said he" refused to vote as a monster "that he" lets the criminal proceedings against historians, people, journalists undertake to discuss for examining the extent, the reality on the forms of the massacres of Armenians. " Because yes, he admits, "there was massacre."

As for the members who voted this text, they were animated by Lang or "commiseration moral" nor a "commitment to a story" but simply "electoral concerns.

"Cynicism"

Jack Lang is he aware that each of these arguments is ressés ad nauseam negationist sites in Turkey, which each other today of its alignment with their speech? This volte-face in any case has caused outrage in the Armenian community of France, committed to the recognition of a genocide that continues to be actively denied by the Turkish state. The Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) said in an open letter that Jack Lang had not only voted for this law, but he had been one of the main defenders. He denounced the use of quotation marks, a "cast doubt on its reality." The Socialist Party condemns Armenian turn to the "cynicism" of the member of the Pas-de-Calais who "dishonor and shame on the institutions of the Republic". Finally, the news magazine of Armenia reiterates the forum that Jack Lang had published in its columns on 1 March 2000. He wrote with great conviction: "The denial of the Armenian genocide and some of our complacency vis-à-vis a heinous negationism must be fought relentlessly." At a time when 30 000 Turkish citizens have signed a petition moving to the Armenians asking forgiveness for the "Great Disaster" of 1915 and its denial, the time seems to editions Denoel "shameful act", major work of the courageous Turkish historian Taner Akçam, which demonstrates full responsibility Turkish in genocide (without quotation marks) of the Armenians, the mea culpa countdown Jack Lang made stain.

Ursula Gauthier

Journalist for foreign

Armenian Genocide: Jack Lang made amends

NOUVELOBS.COM | 03.02.2009 | 17:25

In response to the article by Ursula Gauthier published on Tuesday nouvelobs.com, Jack Lang sent us this text. He says he will continue to fight for that worldwide genocide of the Armenian people is recognized, particularly in Turkey. "Here is the response to Jack Lang's article Ursula Gauthier: Jack Lang is inverted on the genocide of Armenians.

"I am saddened by the unfair and dishonest campaign orchestrated against me about Armenia. My position is clear.

1. Minister of Culture, I have ceased to encourage and support the culture and the Armenian language.

2. My, in my capacity as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, have passed by the Assembly's statement on Armenian genocide. I then broke it was not simply that the Senate adopted in identical terms.

3. I am not in a favorable effect to the laws of criminalization on the challenge of historical facts. It is better to convince them that constrain. I have encouraged in Turkey seminars and meetings between Armenian and Turkish historians. Gradually, the important sections of Turkish opinion evolve positively. I am surprised that my contempteur today do not fight more for the adoption by the Senate of the law criminalizing the Armenian genocide to which they both appear to hold.

4. I still believe that a condition for Turkey's accession to the EU is the recognition by Turkey of the Armenian genocide. "

A final word: We must remember the context of what I have lent. It was in the context of a scientific debate among historians about the competence of parliaments to enact legislation memorial. It is not the invectives that will change one iota my convictions. I will continue to fight for that worldwide genocide of the Armenian people is recognized, including in Turkey.

Sincerely,
Jack Lang

Armenian Genocide: The Mea Culpa Of Jack Lang Ignites The Net 4 February 2009 by Stéphane / armenews

In a video tour on 11 October 2008 at Blois, the Socialist member of the Pas-de-Calais, Jack Lang, questions the law passed in January 2001, which recognized the Armenian genocide of 1915. "I passed the first resolution of the National Assembly - in quotes, can we say, because it takes too that historians do their work - the Armenian genocide. I voted because I believe that It was an act of moral, repair history. I do not know if I react the same way today. "

Jack Lang was speaking before the Association for the History Freedom, chaired by the historian Pierre Nora. "At that time [the vote], takes Jack Lang, was chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, so I am doubly guilty, if I may say so, because Committee Chairman and member .

In a letter to nouvelobs.com, the former minister of culture that he has not changed its position and continues to fight for that worldwide genocide of the Armenian people is recognized, and especially in Turkey. " He said that these remarks were made in the framework of a scientific debate among historians about the competence of Parliament to enact laws memorial.

PS because the member was one of the main defenders of the law of January 2001. In 2000, Jack Lang had signed an article in the New Armenia. "Recognize the existence of genocide applies to all, because such a plan involves humanity as a whole. The denial of the Armenian genocide and some of our complacency vis-à-vis a heinous negationism must be combated tirelessly, "wrote then Jack Lang. In 1999, Jack Lang had even signed the preface of a book entitled The News of the genocide of Armenians, signed by the Defense Committee of the Armenian cause.

But nothing happens: viewed thousands of times on Dailymotion, the Nouvel Obs or other sites, this video has to react. The Armenian and Turkish communities in France are mobilizing over the Internet to challenge or defend the member. Turkey News calls "to support Jack Lang, the target of Armenian nationalists." Gamkonline, a site of the Armenian community, said that the election in the Pas-de-Calais "insulting France and its humanistic values."

Thibaud Vuitton

LeMonde.fr | 03.02.09 | 18h36 • Mis à jour le 03.02.09 | 20h48

During the last days, Ara Toranian, former chairman of the Coordination Committee of Armenian Associations in France (CCAF) wrote a strident article about these apologies:

Revisionism: The Incredible Lang Blois, 27 January 2009, Stéphane / armenews

It was believed to have seen everything and heard in matters of treason, but the reversal of Jack Lang on the law on the recognition of the genocide of Armenians left completely stunned. The socialist leader, who was one of the architects of this resolution, which participated for the conference to defend the Committee of Defense of the Armenian Cause organized at the Sorbonne in 1998 and has increased at the time the speeches and position in its favor, is now on its commitments. Under pressure from a certain conception of political correctness (in the most benevolent of assumptions), it now says in effect that he does not know if revoterait such a resolution.

In a statement made on 11 October 2008 at Blois in the debate "Freedom for history" led by President Pierre Nora eponym of the association, former Minister of Culture is an amazing book "mea culpa". It proclaims in effect, as a member, but also as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, twice voted guilty of this Act "in quotes Armenian genocide."

Palinodie This calls into question the reality of the extermination was taken in early January by the site "European Turkey" which defends the revisionist theories on this crime against humanity. In addition, Jack Lang does not have enough words to condemn the hard grounds "electioneering" that he would have pushed the parliamentarians, led yet it was, to pass this law. Finally, he denounced with unusual virulence of the vote by 12 October 2006 which the National Assembly charged the denial of genocide.

That meet the face of such denial, such a felony with the victims of the first genocide of the twentieth century such inconsistency and self-indulgence? Probably not much if it is contained within a certain restraint. Except perhaps Judas refer to its mirror and remind Jack Lang "free opinion" he had written to the issue of 51 Magazine News Armenia on 1 March 2000 on the question:

Video: http://www.dailymotion.com Here or Here
If not accessible from your country please use proxy access.
Please clik on "Menu", then "Sous-titres" for the English subtitles.

Blois - Freedom for history - Statement by Jack Lang

The Victory Of The Duty Of Memory On Realpolitik

The View Of Jack Lang In Armenia News:
Forget the victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915, it would be the "murder a second time" under the strong expression of Elie Wiesel. To avoid this serious misconduct, the National Assembly unanimously adopted on 29 May 1998, a law copy: "France recognizes publicly the Armenian genocide of 1915." The simplicity and clarity of this formulation is heavy with meaning. It was not that day to settle a historical problem. It was to fill a gap in political question of courage and justice. The duty of memory needed to Realpolitik.

The decision of the National Assembly took several meanings. First, it rendered justice to the Armenians of France, models of integration remarkable in their adopted home since the disaster of 1915. It was also a gesture of sympathy for the entire Armenian people, most recently with a state. She had a moral and a rule of law: certain crimes. Genocide is one of those. Recognize that a genocide is needed at all, because such a plan involves humanity as a whole. The denial of the Armenian genocide and some of our complacency vis-à-vis a heinous negationism must be fought relentlessly.

We now know that it is impossible to begin a grief without justice and that perpetrators are, at least, appointed when it is too late to punish. Turks and Armenians should gather around a common historical memory, to finally settle the accounts of the past and establish a trusting relationship oriented towards the future. Devoir policy then. Intellectual, too, no less difficult. The decision of the National Assembly is a double act: recognition of past event, message for future generations. Do not let time, the wrong reasons, low intentions, black make up a page unreadable too obscure in the history of mankind.

Seek to fill the enormous between reflection and experience that makes the vastness unspeakable. Elie Wiesel admits that the task is difficult but very necessary, "which has not experienced the event never know, and who has lived, never did reveal. Not really. No way.. "

The duty of memory is a moral standing. President François Mitterrand and reaffirmed in January 1984, the Armenians of France: "It is not possible to erase the traces of the genocide that you hit. This must be enshrined in the memories of people and the sacrifice to serve as teaching young people at the same time as the will to survive so that we can, over time, that this people does not belong to the past, that it is present and it has a future. "

It is a truth valid yesterday, today, tomorrow, here, there, everywhere. That is why the Senate can not continue to shirk their duty and should formally recognize the Armenian genocide. This is the best way for France's contribution to the establishment of a peaceful and lasting relationship between Turks and Armenians have to engage in their work on historical memory. And what is needed between Turks and Armenians is equally between Turks and Kurds.
Jack Lang

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Published A Vitriolic Posts:
Jack Lang Insult France And Its Values Of Humanism Under The Fra Dachnaktsoutioun, 29 January 2009, Stéphane / armenews

It is with dismay that the FRA Dachnaktsoutioun has taken note of the scandalous About Jack Lang at the opening of the debate "Freedom for history", held in Blois on 11 October.

Jack Lang, who in the recent past has supported and voted for the law of the French Republic affirming the reality of the Armenian genocide of 1915, holds about openly deniers. Remember also that Jack Lang had signed the preface to the book "the news of the genocide of Armenians" published by the CDCA in October 1999.

He talks about the Armenian genocide in quotation marks. He was convicted of having participated in the vote on the law on the genocide of Armenians, and says he refused to vote in the National Assembly, the draft law criminalizing denial of Armenian genocide, calling it the "monstrous ". This legislation is stalled in the Senate for two and a half years, pending a on the agenda. Jack Lang, in his words, took the new rhetoric of denial of the Armenian genocide.

It grows cynicism reaffirming its support for the Gayssot law, criminal law punishing France in the denial of Jewish and Gypsy genocides, and at the same time eliminates the need for a law protecting the memory of the Armenian genocide in France.

It takes an argument of the new flagship deniers is to bring the reality of the genocide of Armenians in endless discussions.

Jack Lang is shame and dishonor the institutions of the republic.

Jack Lang reveals the face of Holocaust denial in all its cowardice.

Jack Lang insult France and its values of humanism.

Republicans in this country can not accept this statement and this attitude outrageous.

We ask you to report Mr. Jack Lang.

DACHNAKTSOUTIOUN FRA / Western Europe
Paris, 28 January 2009

The CCAF (Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France) Itself Sent A Violent Letter To Jack Lang:

The CFC is responding to what Jack Lang

Mr Jack LANG, Former Minister
Member of the Pas de Calais, 74 rue du Chemin Vert, 62200 BOULOGNE SUR MER

Ref. : 2009/CCAF/Pst-008 PJ. : 1, Paris, 28 January 2009

Mr,
We are extremely surprised and shocked by what you said during the debate "Freedom for history" led by Pierre Nora in Blois, taken recently by the website "European Turkey" (see text attached).

Indeed, you seem to be delivered to a mea culpa incredible, so casual, on a matter as serious as the Armenian genocide of 1915, recognized by France with a law promulgated on 29 January 2001 by the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

While you were one of the architects of this law, you have participated in seminars and meetings in its favor, you have increased interventions and statements to the vote on this text and criticized the Senate seemed to delay vote, you turn around and tell Blois quite the opposite of your positions and commitments that we previously believed sincere. Thus, "you look twice voted guilty of this law on the Armenian genocide in quotes because you were a member and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly."
What a pity that you have not added it was as a human being in love with justice and truth as you also say a few years ago.

About your current positions and are unacceptable and are pure denial of genocide, a crime against humanity. What if a politician were to say that he regretted having voted for the Gayssot Act of 1990 regarding the criminalization of the denial of the Holocaust?
What would you respond to this person who looks like a law "allows the prosecution of historians, against persons, against citizens, against journalists, who would undertake to discuss, question the extent, on the Actually, in the form of massacres? You would, like us, outraged by such remarks and attitudes, convictions and wondering as racism and anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial is considered a crime in our Republic, which has its values and principles of both universal and humanistic.

In your words, not only will you make the Holocaust a special case, stating that his denial should be condemned, but you get your reservation, or even your opposition to everything related to the denial of the Armenian genocide that you qualify for second Armenia Act "which is a law that affects society as a whole and the fight against Holocaust denial.

I would like to draw your attention to the inadmissibility of your comments and stressed their total contravention with the law previously cited and passed unanimously by the national representation when you were Minister of Education and promulgated in the official for eight years.

The words and phrases you use are a real insult to the memory of the 1,500,000 victims of the genocide recognized by including the international and European bodies like the UN, the European Parliament and an affront to their descendants that we are. They are also an insult to the memory of humanity. The French-Armenian thought that a law of the French Republic and all the provisions in Europe or elsewhere, the memory and historical truth will triumph over decades of silence and complicity with a state still denial. We must note that you seem to guide you now on a different path, that of realpolitik and cynicism that can be characterized.

Therefore, it seems highly advisable that you bring a clear and precise on your positions, and that can stop the current offensive and contrary to reality, objectivity and more importantly to the morality that you invoke often in your speeches.
When there's talk of a genocide that took place, there can be no doubt exist, put the word in quotation marks or talk casually. We can not accept such a situation.

Finally, I inform you that this letter is also sent for information to Ms. Martine Aubry and Mr. François Hollande, respectively current and past first secretary of the Socialist Party to Jean-Marc Ayrault, President of the Socialist Group in the National Assembly and that Catherine Génisson, First Secretary of the Federation PS Pas de Calais. The contents of this letter will be made public and the response that you make.

In the meantime, please believe me, Mr, expression of my distinguished sentiments.

Alexis GOVCIYAN

Speech by Mr Jack Lang, 11 October 2008, Blois
"I turn a word about who we meet, I do not at all exhausted in a few words, and I am surrounded at the moment of eminent specialists who have worked, and then in the room Similarly there are great historians intervene. Some words in bulk, I am not prepared to talk, a few words to say in bulk at the heart of this discussion is freedom, freedom of thought, freedom to seek freedom to discover the freedom to ask questions. Freedom ... and it is both a conviction and a temperament. I believe that in all matters relating to intelligence, art, creation, freedom must be the principle, sometimes even absolute, and we can not make exceptions or conditions may, in certain circumstances perfectly defined, freedom of thought, including forgiveness may be politically incorrect, including think evil. If we do not recognize the right to think, think evil, then the point is freedom.

I will not think badly of course, everyone has their beliefs, values, but at the same time it should, except within certain limits, and unfortunately to propose a topic or question you are going to discuss, what we believe that by reasoning or by intuition or emotion or because we are citizens of that time, the law on the Holocaust and the denial of the Holocaust must be respected as such? Why, how? And why are we reserved, if not hostile to other acts of proclamation and especially to other criminal laws related to historical facts?

I take a concrete example to move forward, so I do not answer the question that I ask, it will be in the debates. To move forward a little in my question, I take the example of Armenia. It is that myself, so I have to say the truth as it should, I passed the first resolution of the National Assembly on the recognition, in quotes, can we say, because it is also necessary that historians do their work, the Armenian genocide. I voted because I thought it was an act of moral and repair history, and given the absolute refusal of the Turkish government to accept any discussion, any debate on this subject, it seemed to me the French National Assembly could perform this act. I do not know if I react the same way today, but in any case I have voted. And at the time, I was chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, so I am doubly guilty, if I may say, MP and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. However, I am prepared with force against the second law on Armenia, already at that time I committed a crime, vis a vis the instructions of my own group, I refused to vote as a text monstrous.

It allows the prosecution against historians, against persons, against citizens, against journalists, who would undertake to discuss, reflect on the magnitude, the reality on the forms of killing (there were massacres ) of Armenians committed by the Turkish armed. Yes, he must speak clearly, those who voted it did not at all a kind of moral commiseration, not at all a kind of attachment to a story. They did so simply by electoral concerns, thinking and raise the voice of the Armenian community of France, who deserves our respect. But at the same time, the duty of a senior politician, a member of Parliament, a minister, is to carry out its mandate with courage and conviction, and to resist any pressure whatsoever . And the consequence of this vote absurd, unacceptable to the National Assembly, was in Turkey itself, I participated as a guest professor of the Bilgi University in Istanbul, we were able to convene a committee of Historians mixed Turkish and Armenian, was a first, which had agreed to meet, discuss, think to compare their views, discuss their assessments. And this vote was such that it echoes blocked temporarily, this work is essential to understand, to know the historical reality in the region.

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19.1.09

2699) The Civic Responsibilities Of Historians by J.-N. Jeanneney

Jean-Noël Jeanneney is a French historian and politician. He was under-secretary in socialist governments (1991-1993), president of the French national library (2002-2007). He is currently professor emeritus of contemporary history at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. .. . As president of the scholar committee of the Rendez-vous de Blois (Blois Meetings), he suggested, in Spring 2008, to Pierre Nora to launch a appeal in Blois. Mr. Nora accepted, of course.

Jean-Noël Jeanneney,« The civic responsibilities of historians », conférence pronconcée à l'Université de Melbourne le 29 avril 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to have been invited to give this lecture, and by way of setting it in a suitably elevated context, I want to begin with some striking remarks made by Chateaubriand about Napoleon. They were published in the newspaper, Le Mercure, on the 4th of July 1807 "When, in the silence of abjection, the only sounds to be heard are the chains of the slave or the voice of the informer, when everything trembles before the tyrant and when incurring his favour is as dangerous as falling into disgrace, the historian appears, charged with the vengeance of the people. Nero prospered in vain, because already, under the empire, Tacitus had been born."

‘The historian charged with the vengeance of the people’: the call to assume this role is majestic, almost frightening. What does it mean? Nothing less than putting the historian in the front-line of service to liberty, truth and the nation.

Now I must hasten to say that there is a simple (and perhaps prudent) way of protecting oneself against the anxiety that a member of our profession might feel when faced with such an overwhelming mission. That is to accept from the start that this idea of the responsibility of the historian has long since been rejected by many, either because they contest the very notion of civic interest, or because they do not believe the historian capable of assuming it.

At the heart of this rejection is a belief – found frequently in Antiquity, particularly with the Greeks – that there are many occasions in the history of peoples where silence about the past is a duty. After dramatic events, periods of oppression or civil discord, it becomes necessary to emphasize reconciliation. Remember Sophocles in Antigone, when the darkness of hatred among the protagonists draws to an end, and the choir cries: ‘Today’s combats must forever be forgotten!’ This is telling the historian to shut up. It’s a particularly blunt way of questioning our role.

In Athens, at the end of the 5th century, such silence was systematically organised.

In 403, after the bloody dictatorship of the Thirty and the military defeat of Athens, when the democrats returned to the city, they proclaimed a general reconciliation and passed a decree forbidding ‘remembrance of the misfortunes’(mé mnésikakeîn). They obliged all Athenians to take an oath never to evoke the recent terrible struggles. It applied to everyone without exception – the democrats, the oligarchs, and those called the ‘quiet people’: the ones who had ‘lived’ through the period concerned without taking sides. The determination to seal the democratic consensus was thus based on a duty of silence. Aristotle even claims that the moderate Archinos, who returned to Athens with the democrats, condemned a citizen who had broken this promise to death, and he recounts that after this example, nobody else took the risk. Isocrates – who was 33 years old in 403 – wrote this:

"Because we have made mutal guarantees to each other, we govern ourselves in as fine and collective a manner as if no misfortune had ever afflicted us."

In contrast to such a position, the historian embodies the refusal to forget, even though this might threaten the emotional and moral unity of the collectivity.

As you will understand, I have only a distant knowledge of the debates that have stirred up the historians in your country over the past twenty years or so – since the bicentenary of European settlement – over the vital question of your collective memory of the relations between the colonisers and the indigenous peoples. But from what I have learned, thanks especially to the work of Stuart Macintyre, I know that the issue of the role of historians is not unfamiliar to you.

In particular, I noted with interest the statement of your former Prime Minister, John Howard, who declared after his 1996 electoral triumph: “One of the more insidious developments in Australian political life over the past decade or so has been the attempt to rewrite Australian history in the service of a partisan political cause”. He was posing – in a polemical manner – the central question of the historian’s role and motivations in a democracy. Because he did not like what they wrote, the Honorable John Howard was claiming these historians to be politically biassed, and even that their writing did not respect the facts. And yet, if I understand it rightly, this work was – in the eyes of the academics that the prime minister found so profoundly irritating – both scientifically and civically well founded.

To demand silence about unwelcome source materials, Mr Howard could perhaps have called upon the poet Paul Valéry. Long after Isocrates, Valéry launched a brutal attack on History that has become almost hackneyed in France but is perhaps less well known here. He claimed that if ‘history is the most dangerous product that the alchemy of the intellect has created’, it is because ‘it intoxicates peoples, engenders false memories in them, exaggerates their reflexes, preserves their old wounds, and torments them in their rest.’ For Valéry, historians are particularly noxious not only because they open old scars, but because they can justify more or less anything. So there we are: the problem is fairly sharply posed.

Before tackling it, however, we need to take one last precaution, by distinguishing between this question and the question of a historian’s personal individual political engagement – whether through intervention in civic debate or direct involvement in the political arena.

You will understand that my examples are French ones. It is instructive to consider, over the long term, the successive waves of historians, in France, who chose at various moments, to get personally involved in public affairs. Take the generation of 1820 for example, which established itself in opposition to Louis XVIII and then Charles X. This is the generation of Guizot, Thiers, Mignet and Augustin Thierry.

For them, as Guizot observes in his Mémoires, history offered an arsenal of arguments against reactionary politics. They deliberately used their knowledge and their personal savoir-faire to strengthen their positions in the conflicts of the public forum. To such an extent that Guizot, for instance, made no distinction between his historical writing and his circumstantial and polemical texts. A century later, when one looks at the list of members of the Committee of Vigilance against fascism in the 1930s, one notes the large number of historians involved in it. Later still, I remember that, as a student in the Latin Quarter, at the end of the Fourth Republic or the very beginning of the Fifth, I attended a meeting against the Algerian War where three of our Sorbonne lecturers spoke against repression. They had abandoned for a time the podium from which they ordinarily addressed us.

But that kind of activity is different from the subject I want to explore with you, which is the responsibility of historians as they exercise their intellectual and professional activity, charged by the collectivity to which they belong to organise shared memory, to cast light on the common past, and to reflect on the traces it has left. In doing so, they may choose to cut themselves carefully off from contemporary politics, and moreover, while we can identify moments where historians intervene directly in domestic or international political life, we can also find moments of withdrawal or mistrust. This happened for instance in the 1920s in Europe, which saw academic historians withdrawing from the political struggles as a reaction against the orgy of nationalism, even though – and I’ll come back to this – most of them had been participants in it during the Great War.

It remains the case that historians, however prudently they set themselves up to appear, can never completely escape the problem of their civic responsibility, because their entire intellectual activity is affected by it. They cannot ever get away from the possibility that their work will have major political consequences, by virtue of the fact that they are working on the past, and that the presence of that past – notwithstanding the views of the Greeks in 403 – always weighs heavily (and I don’t think this is a negative thing) in the debates and sensitivities that weave the life of a democracy.

Consequently, their responsibility is a great one – unless they choose to limit themselves to the superficial satisfaction of anecdotal history. I see the management of this responsibility as requiring three lines of approach. Firstly, historians must contribute to the truth about humankind – what it has been, and hence what it is. Secondly, there is the need to clarify ideas, in the service of those who engage in action. And finally they must serve the identity of the nation to which they belong. This third role, as we shall see, is the most ambiguous.

The truth about humankind? Now that, assuredly, is rather daunting.

I would like here to evoke the figure of Pierre Vidal-Naquet, who has just died: perhaps you know how emblematic his trajectory was, both as a man of erudition and as a citizen. In his memoirs, he recounts that it was the text of Chateaubriand that I quoted at the beginning that made him decide, while he was still an adolescent, to become a historian. He specialised – brilliantly – in the study of Ancient Greece, but this knowledge of Antiquity did not prevent him subsequently, in various grave national situations, from applying the rules of his trade to contemporary analyses of great civic importance. I would say that it even led to it. I think of his combat during the Algerian War, in the affair of the mathematician Maurice Audin, who was assassinated by the French Army. Or the role he played later in the struggle against the negationism that was casting doubt on the existence of the gas chambers. Or again, more recently, when he played on resonances with Antiquity to block the offensive led by certain suspect authors who were trying to sully the memory of Jean Moulin, the leader and hero of the French Resistance.

Obviously the society of historians cannot claim any monopoly in bringing the truth to light, based on some professional know-how. That would be ridiculous. But it seems to me that there would be cause for guilt if historians did not, in such circumstances, contribute to the separation of truth and falsehood.

I would like to spend a moment on the Dreyfus Affair. As you know, this fundamental confrontation has played a central role in the history of contemporary France because it saw the violent conflict between two visions of the nation. There were those, on the Right, who believed that the national interest had priority over anything else. And there were those, on the Left – every bit as patriotic as the others (it was less than thirty years since the dramatic 1871 defeat by the Prussians) – who believed that the greatness of the nation would wither away if its defence depended on a violation of human rights. They saw these rights as a national responsibility towards the whole of humanity and as the very foundation of democracy. I can’t help thinking that your recent ‘History Wars’ – albeit in a less immediately dramatic mode – are not without some echo of this episode, which for us was foundational. And it is pertinent for my topic today, because it awoke in various French historians the determination to intervene in public life as historians, drawing on their professional practice.

At the trial of Emile Zola, a certain number of academic historians appeared, and attacked the false conclusions of the sorry Alphonse Bertillon – the man who, because of his antisemitic prejudice, had peremptorily confused the handwriting of the falsely accused Captain Dreyfus, and that of Esterhazy, the real traitor.

Archivists and historians appeared in court to refute Bertillon’s competence by using their training in the analysis of texts (both form and content), skills which are at the heart of our profession. It required a lot of moral courage, because the pressure from the nationalists, both in the press and in the streets, was strong enough to shake even the most confident temperaments. The historians were spelndidly effective, and their steady-headed certainty about where their duty lay finally led, after much ado, to the triumph of justice and truth and the establishment of Dreyfus’s innocence.

There is much talk today about ‘social demand’ – it’s a term very much in vogue in France. Historians – and if my reading of your texts is accurate, I think it happens here, too – historians are more and more being called upon to intervene in controversial matters, for the benefit of citizens. In France, the very long aftermath of the collaboration with the Nazi occupation has led to various spectacular trials. I shall cite in particular the one of a former prefect of Marshall Pétain’s Vichy regime, Maurice Papon. After the Liberation, Papon had a brilliant career under various governments before his role in the deportation of Jews was revealed. This trial had a big impact on the French national consciousness. Now, among my colleagues who are specialists of the period, a fundamental debate arose, a debate which raises a fascinating ethical issue: should historians accept, or not, to go before a tribunal to use their professional competence to enlighten members of the jury about such a distant period, and to shape the jury’s judgement about a prefect’s freedom of action, and hence his legal, civic and human responsibility?

Personally, I approved those who responded affirmatively, while respecting those who think that a historian’s place should never be in the courts, which by their very nature make black or white judgements, without the multiple nuances that we work with, and with quite different rituals and obligations from those that reign over historical research in the ivory tower.

Personally, I consider that historians would be failing in their duty if they refused this task of bringing the truth to light when the public interest especially demands it. Clearly, it is also the responsibility of the justice system to draw out truth: does this mean there is competition when a judgement has a historical dimension? I think it’s probably possible to draw a line distinguishing the respective duties: if there is a crime or misdemeanor concerning the norms and laws of the national community, the historian can help define the responsibility of those implicated; but only the judges can each conclusions in respect to possible punishment.

This notion of historical ‘expertise’ is difficult to handle. But it becomes clear if we consider that it can and must help the moral, civic and legal judgement process to better understand and, potentially, to reach better conclusions. It can do this firstly by scrutinising the freedom of action of the protagonists, so that the diversity of possibilties they have faced can be reconstructed moment by moment.

I think the very heart of our mission is in fact this constant effort, against the temptations of anachronism, to reconstruct what, at each successive moment, has been the freedom of those involved.

This is why, moreover, the historians of my generation are often interested in the notion of uchronia. Utopia is the place which does not exist. Uchronia is the time that has not happened. A French philosopher, Charles Renouvier, one of the guiding lights of our Third Republic, published in 1857 a book with this title, Uchronia.

Under the subtitle ‘A History of European civilisation as it was not, but might have been’, this philosopher posited that the Christians – a sect coming out of Asia like so many others – had failed to win the souls of the western world. He undertook to reconstruct our history from this postulate.

Other forms of uchronia have been taken up, less ambitious ones, starting with small, even minute changes. What would have happened during the Second World War if Churchill’s plane had been shot down by German fighters over the Channel in June 1940? What would have happened if, during the assassination attempt of 20 July 1944, someone had not moved the satchel containing the bomb, and Hitler had been killed?

I have raised the question of uchronia because it seems to me that what can at first appear as a silly mind game is in fact a fruitful exercise for anyone trying to reflect on the links between individual and collective behaviour. This restitution of all the possibilities that have been set aside in the final train of events can be significantly enlightening. At the nexus of history and morality, it can illuminate the freedom of the protagonists, which is what historians must evaluate and make known – if we are to be faithful to the mainstay of our professional and civic ambition of serving the truth about humanity.

The second mission of historians in a democracy, as I see it, is to help clarify the thought of those engaged in political action. As a stimulus, we can return to the severity of Paul Valéry, who in the text I quoted earlier, affirmed that the work of historians made nations ‘bitter, arrogant and vain.’

We can readily concede to Valéry that precedents, if politicians become obsessed by them, can paralyse their understanding of situations. Tocqueville, in his Souvenirs, reproached Louis-Philippe for letting himself be ‘deceived by the false light that the history of earlier facts casts on the present time.’

At the risk of appearing paradoxical, I would claim that the task of historians is precisely to warn political agents against the fascination of repetition, by reminding them that nothing ever begins again in the same way, and that what follows is always new. One day in 1790, in the Constitutive Assembly, a deputy interrupted a speech that was drawing extensively on the lessons of Ancient Rome. ‘Sir!’ he cried, ‘History is not our code!’

Prudence and irony are needed to deal with the use that politicians can make of the large reservoir of situations and diverse positions that the past offers: we know how readily they can isolate a given fragment of an event that could easily be refuted by another, if only they should care to mention it.

It is certainly not up to the historian to be the obliging furnisher of this arsenal of arguments that bring comfort and dynamism to politicians. But conversely, historians have to know that the history they write can and must play an essential role in enlightening these same political actors in the exercise of their power.

Here, I’m tempted to play Polybius against Valéry – Polybius who was quoted to good effect by Nietzsche in his celebrated 1874 study on The Uses and Abuses of History for Life. ‘The study of political history,’ wrote Polybius, ‘is the best preparation for governing the state, and it is also the best discipline to give us the forbearance put up with the capriciousness of fortune.’

In all democracies, we can see that the politicians who most clearly leave their mark are those with historical ballast, and that those who are not are almost always, like boats without keels, condemned to float on the surface of events without really influencing them.

This responsibility of historians obviously has to be extended beyond leaders to the entire body of citizens, citizens who are educated to history through books, the press, the audio-visual media, and first of all through school.

History as civic education… Certainly it is not a question of dropping some kind of revealed truth on our compatriots from on high. Rather, our task is to help sharpen their perception, by teaching the diversity of choices, the chains of events, the rythms of duration in time.

In the midst of the avalanche of information that modern media technology has intensified for all of us, the most effective citizens of tomorrow, the wisest, will be those who have learned – thanks first and foremost to history (what a responsibility!) – how better to classify, order and organise the complexity of the world which will be fashioned by their choices, their behaviour and their votes.

They will learn that collective life does not operate in straight lines and that it is constructed according to complex rhythms – some slow and profound, some developing over the middle term, others again rapid and superficial; they will learn that it is all these rhythms together that, at any given moment, delineate the field of each person’s individual freedom within the life of the collectivity. This can readily be applied, in any nation, to all sorts of questions that thrown up by current events: for instance, among others, the sacrifices that each individual must make for the national defence, or the policy of solidarity towards the most needy, or the relations between society and religions, or the role of justice and the nature of punishment, or the tax system, and – in a more enduring way – the balance between the State and the market.

I have one last area to consider, which is perhaps the most important, namely the links between our profession and the question of national identity. Alphonse Aulard, the famous historian of the French Revolution wrote in 1903: ‘History will always remain the nation becoming aware of itself.’ And there we are at the core of the issue of unity or ‘divisions’ evoked by Paul Valéry.

In the first decades of the Third Republic in France, all of historiography was influenced by a kind of secular pope, a ‘national school-master’ called Emest Lavisse. For a long time, Lavisse dominated the teaching of future citizens, through his hefty university-level History of France, right down to the primary school textbooks that, under his name, were distributed by the millions. This teaching was based entirely on the tenet that historical judgement had the right to sort the events of the past in a simple and peremptory fashion: the good was what favorised national unity; the bad was what got in its way or threatened it.

A tension with universal values results from this attitude, because of the risk that history is putting itself in the service not of patriotism but of patriotism’s degraded caricature, nationalism. I already mentioned this tension, from another angle, in relation to the Dreyfus Affair. In relation to the First World War, in our countries given over to the barbarous folly of a European civil war – and I’m not forgetting the price paid by Australia –, we could put together a very sad anthology of the excesses of historians carried away by their patriotism. It applied to both camps, and sometimes involved the most unreasonable attitudes, to the point of dishonouring the intelligence of the authors.

I have read that you knew something of this phenomenon here at the same period, and that without going to those extremes, your great Ernest Scott, celebrated in this university, put his academic reputation at risk in his service to the Australian cause. In the other direction, we need to salute the efforts of those historians on both sides of the Rhine, who in the 1920s and 1950s, sought to bring convergence to the French and German textbooks, thanks to a dialogue undertaken in a spirit not of forgetting but of peace.

From another angle, a nation is also the history of its conflicts and in some cases of its collective crimes – in other words of the way memory is worked over by history. I only know about your ‘history wars’ from the outside, and you won’t be surprised if I use the example of the historians of Germany and their grappling with the issue of the collective responsibility of the entire people in the flowering and perpetuation of nazism and its criminal barbarities. But I’ll also point to a situation that is closer to yours, namely the controversies in the United States and Canada that for several decades now have sprung up around the intervention of historians in the legal confrontations over the rights claimed by the descendants of the Indians who signed particular treaties with their conquerors. In their eyes, these treaties confer special rights that fall outside the common regulations – hunting and fishing rights, for example.

In North America things are further complicated, in civic and moral terms, because many of our colleagues have accepted to be paid by one side or the other to defend their respective thesis. I remember rejecting, a few years ago, an offer made by lawyers for cigarette manufacturers in anticipation of future trials. They were asking me to certify, from documents that they would give me, that in the 1950s smokers were already perfectly aware of the risks they were running, and that consequently, no responsibility could be imputed to the firms concerned. You can see how slippery the ground is, from the point of view both of the ethics of the profession and of the public interest.

Along this line, and more broadly, it is illuminating to consider those special moments that constitute commemorations – when a nation cristalises chronological chance to reflect on itself, and, in the best of cases, to cast light on the deep forces that have slowly created a state of ‘wanting-to-live-together’.

I hope you’ll forgive me for taking a French example once again. I was charged by President Mitterrand, in 1989, to organise the commemoration of the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. It was a priviledged occasion for reflecting on the situation of historians, on their role, and their responsibility in such circumstances.

At the time, I felt that a comparison with the two earlier commemorations, in 1889 and 1939, would be instructive. In 1889, Alphonse Aulard (the Revolution historian I mentioned earlier), stated explicitly: ‘I wanted at once to teach and practice the French Revolution by serving knowledge and serving the Republic.’ The whole question was to know if at certain moments, given the dramas and passions of the past, there wouldn’t be a contradiction between those two goals. In truth, during that first Centenary, the historians’ action was characterised by sufficient fervour for them not to feel any contradiction or discomfort. The University was on the radical left, with a neo-Kantian orientation, and honoring the memory of the Revolution was a way of honoring the Republic, which was seen as the balanced, peaceful and ultimately successful incarnation of the generous ideals of 1789.

In 1939, at the time of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary, instead of agreement and fervour, what dominated was rather awkwardness and discord, because of the weaknesses of the European democracies, which were beginning to doubt themselves in the face of the totalitarian ideologies. The attempt was made to mobilise historians to celebrate the so-called ‘translatlantic revolutions’ and to emphasise the links between the United States and France at the end of the 18th century (in an effort to attract the sympathy and support of Roosevelt’s America). But this provoked a lot of reticence, not because of sympathy for fascism (though there were some exceptions), but because the profession did not feel carried by a sufficiently strong wave of collective determination to set aside their academic scuples and to descend into the arena.

As for the 1989 Bicentenary, I was too involved in it to have the necessary critical distance. But it seems to me that, helped by the precedents, we managed to achieve a good balance between historical research and the civic implications of the event. The Mission I headed imposed a careful and strict separation between the scientific historiographical work – which the State kept its nose out of, even though it provided subsidies – and, on the other hand, the explicitly political task of cristalising deep hopes for the benefit of a certain idea of the French nation as a unique and universal entity in the real world.

What I have been able to read, at the time and since, about the way Australia organised the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the nation, suggests to me that, notwithstanding the specificities of our two countries, you must have confronted problems somewhat similar to ours – especially in the light of your memorial debates about the relations between colonists and the indigenous populations.

The issue goes beyond commemorations. In France, there have recently been sharp reactions to a law voted by the right-wing majority in the context of a much-needed and belated renewal of the historiography of French colonisation. This law imposed on the teachers in our junior and senior highschools the obligation to teach ¬ and I quote – the ‘positive aspects’ of colonisation. Quite a number of us responded that it was certainly not through a law that historians could be forced to have a balanced approach and that this text, therefore, was nothing more than a party-political injunction. I must say that when I saw that your former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, had sought in 1999 to introduce into the preamble of your constitution the statement that ‘Australians are free to be proud of their country and heritage’, I had a reaction bordering on the incredulous.

In France, a great controversy has developed around what we call ‘memorial laws’ – laws that seek to shape the national memory. Whether they are passed by the Right or the Left, they claim to tell the truth about historical facts in the name and interest of the French nation. One of them has recognised the Armenian genocide, another has defined as a crime against humanity slavery and black slave trading (the western practice, rather than the Arab practice). The critique of the historians has moreover reached back as far as a 1990 law, the so-called Gayssot law which punished negationism, the negation of the gas chambers under the Nazis. Against these ‘memorial’ laws, we created an association called ‘Liberty for History’, under the presidency of the great René Rémond, who was my master. After his death, Pierre Nora became president. Neither of these men can be accused of being carried away by excessive emotion.

Our conviction is that it is not the place of lawmakers to regulate the work of history in this way. You should not see this as self-protection by the profession. One does not need a university label to write good history. Negationism is ignominious. But if it has faded, it is because of the work of couragious colleagues, not because of laws, and moreover, before that law, we had plenty of legal means of punishing antisemitism. For us, it is absolutely unacceptable from a civic point of view, that successive and possibly contradictory pariamentary majorities should make determinations of theat sort about the interpretation of the past, relying on some transient and chance notion of the national interest. It is not only an offence to that intellectual freedom that the Republic must guarantee. It is also a peril to the dignity of a democracy in relation to its past. Patriotism, in truth, while a precious value, should take up its abode elsewhere.

By way of conclusion, I would like to give the final word to another great historian, Gabriel Monod, who founded the Revue historique in 1876. Monod was a strict Protestant, and as such was more than most preoccupied with the ethical and civic foundations of his discipline. In an article on the progress of the science of history since the 16th century, he set about formulating a synthesis of the different duties I have outlined :

"Without proposing any goal, any purpose other than the benefit to truth, history, in a mysterious and sure way, works towards the greatness of the nation and at the same time towards the progress of humanity."

No doubt, like him and like me, a century and a half later, you can feel how difficult the conciliation of these two objectives will always be. But in the end, it is perhaps that challenging task that gives our profession its savour, its scope, and, in the best of cases, when we succeed in fulfilling it, its virtue.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention.

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