As part of its campaign for the primary right, Nicolas Sarkozy received Monday, November 14 at his headquarters in the rue de l’Université a delegation of Armenian personalities and associations in the Paris region. The meeting took place a few days after his visit, Wednesday, November 9 at the National Armenian memory Décines Centre, where he had addressed a panel of local Armenian representatives, Raffi Krikorian, president of the CFC in the Lyon region.
In Paris, Ara Toranian, national co-chair of CCAF, took the first speech in minutes to expose the feelings of the French of Armenian origin in relation to this campaign and their concerns about the precarious conditions in which continues to be the Armenian entity 100 years after the genocide. He mentioned in particular the situation in Nagorno Karabakh, a real strategic and civilizational lock, whose survival guaranteed not only that of Armenia but also represented a security for Europe. He renewed the request for a Center of Civilization and Memory in Paris, indispensable for the perpetuation of an Armenian identity that we must all the more defend that it was the target of an enterprise of extermination. He finally reaffirmed his refusal of Turkey’s entry into Europe.
The very frank discussion with the former President of the Republic also spoke of the commitment of some personalities who are close to him and whose unclear ties with the Azerbaijani dictatorship are no longer to be demonstrated. On this issue as on all the others, Nicolas Sarkozy was very direct and answered the questions of all the participants. He asserted himself as the leader of his camp, hammering that it was he who set the course of his campaign and not his supporters, whose decisions he did not necessarily endorse or automatically approve. He recalled that all his rivals at the primary had been his close collaborators, which did not prevent them being today with him in an internal competition. He mentioned his commitments and especially his actions as President of the Republic, which for him remain more talkable than promises. He particularly remembered that when he was voting for the law criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide, Alain Juppe and Fillon were vehemently against the law and had to scrap with his ministers to keep his word Towards the Armenian community.
He also said his very old opposition to the entry of Turkey into Europe, contrary to the position of the Socialists and Francois Hollande, which he said were for and continues to be. He also said that he had fought at the time of Jacques Chirac against his own camp, in particular Jean-Louis Debré, to block the favorable trend in Ankara. For Nicolas Sarkozy, there can be no difficulty between him and the Armenians of France whose French patriotism he hailed and the attachment to their cause which is also that of the Republic.
Referring to the issue of genocide, he said he would refuse to trivialize its meaning. According to him, there were only 4 genocides, the Armenians, the Jews, the Cambodians, and the Tutsi. The genocidal dimension of the Armenian drama makes the defense of the identity of this people a universal struggle. Bearing in mind the indifference of the media and sometimes their hostility towards the Armenian cause, he drew parallels with his personal situation and invited the Armenians to remain faithful to what they are, to continue their journey and to Not to worry about these negative comments, especially those who have spoken out against penalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide.
Tuesday 15 November 2016,
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