ANKARA, Jan. 27, 2014 (AFP) – French President Francois Hollande Monday urged Turkey to do his “work memory” of the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman empire in 1915, during the first day 
his state visit to Turkey.
“Working memory is still painful, but must be done,” said Mr. Holland during a press conference with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul, whose country refuses to describe the events of 1915 as “genocide.”
Asked about a possible new French law criminalizing the denial of genocide, the French head of state assured that France “will do the right and just right.” Franco-Turkish relations are interspersed with repeated crises since the adoption in 2001 by the French Parliament of a law recognizing the Armenian genocide, followed by legislative abortive attempts to suppress negative.
The latest, adopted in December 2011 by the Parliament with the support of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was struck in February by the Constitutional Council. Immediately after his election, François Hollande confirmed its commitment to penalize denial of the Armenian genocide.
“Do not revive future generations the suffering experienced there a hundred years,” for its part, said Monday Gul, “we must leave this matter for historians.”
Turkey recognizes the “massacre” of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in 1915-1916 in the territories then administered by the Ottoman Empire, where she is the heir, but rejects the term genocide. Armenians argue, them, the figure of 1.5 million deaths in a genocide.
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