by Ara Toranian

The Valérie Boyer proposed law to criminalize denial of genocides have had at least one merit: that of updating a subject that indeed seemed to have fallen through the cracks of the political class. Yet, the debates led this text December 3 in the National Assembly have left no room for ambiguity: all speakers proved to agree on the need to suppress this scourge and protect the victims 1915 as that of their descendants. Now, almost 10 years after a first proposal Socialist law on the matter, scope at the time by Christophe Masse, MP for Bouches-du-Rhône, this need expressed on all the benches of Parliament has continued to face headwinds.

It is in fact that this struggle for human dignity is not the taste of Ankara, and that therefore it interferes number of interests in Turkey. Will not go back here on diplomatic and commercial pressure to which it gave rise, nor on the political and legal vicissitudes that have marked all attempts to make it succeed. But the result is there: almost 4 years after the election of Francois Hollande, who had posed as the champion of the criminalization of Holocaust denial, the promise remained outstanding. He had to get out of this torpor. Valérie Boyer has. Somewhat cavalierly, it is true. And that is what the majority has been criticized by denouncing improvisation of its proposal which experienced erratic judged, according hearings and amendments.

The initial project, filed on November 23, has indeed little to do with the latest version of the text, made public the day before the debates in the Assembly. Could one, on a subject that ran aground on the reefs of the Constitutional Council in 2012 and the State Council in 2013, taking the risk of precipitation? In good faith or not, the government and the Socialist Party who requested the referral of the proposal in committee had beautiful game to justify in the name of that fear their position. We will welcome they have avoided the pitfall of a very bad signal: that to beat the text, which was in their power, given the majority it has in the Assembly. Should we regret however that they have not taken political responsibility for the vote in defiance of the constitutional danger? We’ll know very quickly in terms of the means that they give out of the rut that proposal, within a reasonable time.

The latest version of Valérie Boyer initiative is in any case requires the deposit of eminent jurists, including especially some of those who had worn the iron against her in 2012. The text on which floor will the Law Committee has already been a true reflection. The good faith of those who pleaded the legal security by requiring his removal will take on their reactivity to validate or develop it in the right direction. Everyone knows that when one wants to drown a problem a commission is created. The government and its majority are now on this issue, feet to the wall. It is up to them to take responsibility before history and to meet their commitments, taking into account their proposal, in the refining, or presenting an alternative. The ball is in their court.

Ara Toranian