France ‘should recognize’ Crimea as Russian territory “Marine Le Pen”

February 17, 2015 By administrator

France’s National Front political party leader Marine Le Pen

The leader of the French National Front Party calls on Paris to recognize Crimea as part of the Russian Federation and mend its ties with Moscow, amid tensions over the crisis in Ukraine.

Marine Le Pen made the remarks in a Monday interview with the Polish weekly, Do Rzeczy, saying there is no alternative to recognizing the legality of Crimea’s move.

The French party leader argued that the Crimean people chose to become part of Russia following an orchestrated “coup” in February 2014, when, what she called, “Neo-Nazi militants organized a revolution in Ukraine.”

Le Pen continued by saying that the Black Sea peninsula had no other alternative as the “power in Kiev was illegal” at that time, adding, “The authorities [in Kiev] started to make decisions that would lead to civil war.”

The French politician also urged President Francois Hollande’s government to mend ties with Russia, as the country “is a natural ally of Europe.”

“We are pawns in the game of influence between the United States and Russia. Russia is a great country, a great people, with which Europe has many common strategic interests,” said Le Pen, adding, “We need to talk with Russia.”

Le Pen has been a strong opponent of the European Union’s policies towards Russia and US influence of the bloc since the Ukrainian crisis erupted last year. The party leader has also criticized France’s close ties with Washington, saying that the US is using NATO to extend its influence abroad.

Earlier this month, the politician said she disapproved of Washington’s role in Europe, noting, “Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys,” and warned that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”

The French figure has repeatedly called for a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis, with negotiations on federalization of the country and constitutional reforms to decentralize the Kiev government’s power, rather than attempting to solve the problem by military means.

The remarks by Le Pen come just over a week after France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy said Crimea cannot be blamed for joining the Russian Federation.

French President Francois Hollande has also called for “quite strong” autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern restive regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, saying, “It will be difficult to make them share a common life [with Kiev]” following the armed conflict between Kiev government troops and pro-Russia forces.

Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17, 2014 and formally applied to become part of Russia following a referendum a day earlier, in which 96.8 percent of participants voted in favor of the secession. The voter turnout in the referendum stood at 83.1 percent.

France: Grand International Symposium: The genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the Great War

February 14, 2015 By administrator

Paris, Grand International Symposium,

Wednesday, March 25th – 16.30 / 8:30 p.m.

Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne 76 rue des Ecoles – 75005 Paris

Address by the President of the French Republic, FRANÇOIS HOLLAND

Messages of support

Address by the Rector of the Academy of Paris, FRANÇOIS WEIL

Address by the President of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

SIR PETER CYRILLE HAUTCOEUR

Inaugural Conference of MR YVES TERNON historian, member of the Scientific Council of the Holocaust Memorial, president of CSI

Thursday 26 March, 9h30-19h00,

Shoah Memorial

17 rue Geoffroy The Asnier, 75004 Paris

First Panel: 10.00-12.30

Space-time, the steps of the genocidal process

Chair: Catherine Nicault, historian, University of Reims. Discussant: Stephan Astourian, historian, UC Berkeley

Interventions:

1. The legacy of Abdülhamid II. Janet Klein, Historian, University of Akron.

2. The Ottoman opposition, the Committee of Union and Progress and 1908. Erdal Kaynar Revolution, historian, Polonsky Academy of the Van Leer Institute, EHESS.

3. The “European Concert” and reforms in the eastern provinces, 1878-1914. Claire Mouradian, historian, CNRS.

4. The Special Organization. Cetinoglu known historian, Free University of Ankara.

5. The entry of the Ottoman Empire in the war, from 1914 to 1915. Mustafa Aksakal, historian, Georgetown University.

12h30-13h30: lunch

Second Panel: 13.30-15.00

Perpetrators, Victims, Rescuers

Chair: Richard Hovannisian, historian, UCLA.

Discussant: Vincent Duclert, historian, EHESS.

Interventions:

1. The first phase of the Destruction: Deportations and Massacres (April-August 1915). Raymond Kevorkian, historian, University of Paris VIII.

2. The second phase of the genocide. KM-historian, Rutgers University.

3. Forced conversions. Umit Kurt, historian, Sabancı University.

15.00-15.15: Pause

Third Panel: 15h15-16h20

Witnesses

Chair: Wolfgang Gust, journalist. Discussant: Ara Sarafian, historian, Gomidas Institute.

Interventions:

1. European and American Witnesses. Hans-Lukas Kieser, historian, University of Zurich.

2. Armenian Witnesses. Amatuni Virabyan, historian, State Archives of Armenia.

16h20-16h30: pause

Fourth Panel: 16h30-19h00

Other minorities Empire

Chair: Gérard Chaliand, geostrategist. Discussant: Laurent-Olivier Mallet, historian, University of Montpellier.

Interventions:

1. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century. Georges Bensoussan, historian, the Holocaust Memorial.

2. The complexity of the genocide of the Assyrian-Chaldeans. David Gaunt, a historian, Centre for Baltic and East European University of Soedertoern.

3. Ottoman Greeks. Sia Anagnostopoulou, historian, University of Athens.

4. Kurdish-Yezidi-Armenians, many facets of a community in exile (s). Estelle Amy of Bretèque, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, CNRS.

Day 2: Friday, March 27, 9h30-20h30

EHESS

Amphitheatre Furet

105 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris

Fifth Panel: 10.00-12.30

Logic of war, economic, ideological.

Chair: Joël Kotek, a political scientist, historian, University of Brussels. Discussant: Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, historian, EHESS.

Interventions:

1. Logical ideological, demographic and economic genocide. Hamit Bozarslan, political scientist, historian, EHESS.

2. The logic of pre-genocidal massacres. Vincent Duclert, historian, EHESS.

3. The evolution of the Caucasian front. Peter Holquist, historian, University of Pennsylvania.

4. The mechanisms of decision making of the Young Turk leadership (1913-1915). Erik-Jan Zürcher, historian, University of Leiden.

5. The spoliation of property during the Armenian genocide. Mehmet Polatel, historian, Koç University.

12h30-13h30: lunch

Sixth Panel: 13h30-16h00

International relations and criminal law

Chair: Peter Mertens, lawyer, Sociology of Literature Centre, Free University of Brussels.

Discussant: Vincent Nioré, lawyer and president of the Institute of Criminal Law.

Interventions:

1. The trial of Constantinople (1919-1920). Mikaël Nichanian, historian, National Library of France.

2. breaking the consensus. The Perinçek case, the Armenian genocide and international criminal law. Sevane Garibian, lawyer, Universities of Geneva and Neuchâtel.

3. The status of Armenian stateless refugees and international action of the League of Nations and the International Labour Office. Dzovinar Kevonian, historian, Institute for Political Social Sciences, University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

4. Raphael Lemkin, the extermination of the Armenians and the invention of the word genocide. Annette Becker, historian, University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

5. Lemkin and the Armenian genocide, a legal play. Olivier Beauvallet, international judge.

16h00-16h15: Pause

Seventh Panel: 16h15-18h20

Historiography, a new research field

Chair: Michel Marian, philosopher, Institute of Political Studies in Paris. Discussant: Edhem Eldem, historian, Boğaziçi University.

Interventions:

1. The historiography of the Armenian genocide, a new field of research. Gaïdz Minassian, journalist and political scientist, Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

2. Reflections on Ottoman historiography (years 1960-1990) about the role of non-Muslims and the Ottoman Armenians in commerce and the urban economy. Stephan Astourian, historian, University of Berkeley.

3. The Ottoman governors opposed to deportations and massacres of Armenians. Ayhan Aktar, historian, Bilgi University.

4. The speech of Turkey on the Armenian genocide. Jennifer Dixon, political scientist, Villanova University.

18h20-18h30: Pause

Eighth Panel: 18h30-20h30

Perspectives on clearing trails or the Armenian ghost.

Chair: Patrick Donabedian, art historian, University of Aix-Marseille. Discussant: Antoine Spire, journalist, vice president of Lycra.

Interventions:

1. The permanent traces of the 1915 genocide in the Armenian memory; role of politics in their registration or erasure. Janine Altounian, essayist, translator of Freud.

2. The confiscation and destruction of wealth and property of Armenians and genocide. Dickran Kouymjian, historian, California State University.

3. Photographing after. Pascaline Marre, photographer and Anouche Kunth, historian, CNRS.

Aram Andonian 4. The Nubar library and the creation of a heritage in exile after the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. Boris Adjemian, historian, Library Nubar AGBU.

3rd Day: Saturday, March 28, 9h30-19h30

National Library of France Quai François Mauriac, 75013 Paris

Ninth Panel: 10.00-12.30

Storage, transmission, history, negation

Chair: Henry Rousso, historian, CNRS. Discussant: Claude Mutafian historian.

Interventions:

1. The sacrifice, witness and forgiveness: The Candidate Zareh Vorpouni. Marc Nichanian, professor of philosophy, Sabancı University.

2. Gender, genocide survival. Islamized Armenians again working memory. Ayşe Gül Altinay, anthropologist, Sabancı University.

3. Teaching genocide: European examples. Alban Perrin, historian, the Holocaust Memorial, Institute of Political Studies in Bordeaux.

4. The Founding Myths of Turkish denial. Büşra Ersanli, political scientist, University of Marmara.

5. The memory of the genocide in Turkish Armenians. Hira Kaynar, historian, EHESS.

12h30-13h30: lunch

Tenth Panel: 13.30-15.00

Specificities and comparatismes, I

Chairman: Jean-Pierre Chrétien, historian, CNRS. Discussant: Meir Waintrater journalist.

Interventions: 1. Genocidal thinking: a comparative perspective. Dominik Schaller, historian, University of Heidelberg.

2. Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks by the Ottomans. Roger Smith, historian, College of William and Mary.

3. The Armenian Genocide in the light of a general theory of genocide. Bruneteau Bernard, Professor of Political Science, University of Rennes I.

15.00-15.15: Pause

Eleventh Panel: 15h15-17h00

Specificities and comparatismes, II

Chair: Claire Mouradian, historian, CNRS. Discussant: Yves Ternon, historian, member of the Scientific Council of the Shoah Memorial.

Interventions:

1. Uniqueness of the Holocaust. Christian Ingrao, historian, CNRS.

2. Singularity of the famine in Ukraine. Nicolas Werth, historian, CNRS.

3. Uniqueness of the Tutsi genocide. Helene Dumas, historian, EHESS.

17h00-17h15: pause

Closing Conference: 5:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. President: Gaïdz Minassian, journalist and political scientist, Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

Interventions: 1. Report of the symposium. Raymond Kevorkian, historian, University of Paris VIII.

2. 1915 and the social sciences. Taner Akcam, historian, University of Clarke.

3. Turkism and pan-Turkism. Erik-Jan Zürcher, historian, University of Leiden.

4. The contemporary denial and its defenders. Richard Hovannisian, historian, UCLA.

5. The outlook from the perspective of international justice. Nicholas Koumjian, prosecutor at the international courts.

6. The issue of research on the Armenian genocide in Turkey. Ragıp Zarakolu, editor.

Practical information

Registration by mail in the number of places available

colloquecsi@gmail.com

http://centenaire.org/fr/espace-scientifique/colloquesseminaires/le-genocide-des-armeniens-de-lempire-ottoman-dans-la-grande

France: A Kurdish family secret “Kendal Nezan” & Armenian grandmother survivor of the genocide of 1915

February 13, 2015 By administrator

Photo: François-Xavier Lovat

Danielle Mitterrand is surrounded on his right Massoud Barzani, on his left Jalal Talabani. Kendal Nezan, far left, said: “In October 2002, we (he and Danielle Mitterrand) crossed all” illegally “the Syrian-Iraqi border, in fact that separating the Kurdish areas of Syria and Iraq, to attend . at the opening of the Kurdish Parliament reunified and inaugurate the François Mitterrand site in Erbil

If France has a Kurdish politician since the 1980s is largely this discreet man who has dedicated her life she has to. Portrait. Slate france report

It welcomes the release Kobané , obviously. Kurd from Turkey, discreet and secret Kendal Nezan playing for forty years a key role in the definition of the Kurdish policy of France. For this, it has long enjoyed the support and complicity of the former First Lady Danielle Mitterrand.

It all started in 1976, Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris: “François Mitterrand bought his newspapers, I wanted to talk to him about the situation of the Kurds, so I approached and we had coffee together here,” says Kendal then Nezan As we enter the Village Ronsard , where he still has his habits.

That day, the future president of the French Republic says the young man of 27 years that the Kurdish writer Yasar Kemal is one of his favorite authors: “When I had access to his personal library a few years later I saw that he was right, “says Kendal Nezan.

At the time, it is rather Iran and the struggle against the Shah who occupy the Socialist Party . Posted by François Mitterrand, “Kendal came to us with a group of Iranian Kurds he assured translation. He had long curly hair, with blue eyes and bright this one always knows him, remembers Alain Chenal, advisor to the then secretary of the PS to the third world, Lionel Jospin. Kendal speaking Kurds so clear, concrete and developed without using this vocabulary “anti-imperialist” verbose and jargon often used in the Middle East. “

Civilized and cultured man is at once enigmatic and warm. Yet despite a long companionship, those who frequented the halls of the Party and the Socialists to know little Kendal Nezan. “I worked with him for years, and I do not even know where he lives!” exclaims one of them. Could it discreetly, secretiveness or caution Kendal Nezan speaks so little of it? “A policy probably a little outdated, but that fits my life choices,” he said, not really enthusiastic -c is a litote- the idea that devotes a portrait.

A family secret

Kendal-Nezan

It is Turkey that must go to find out more. Kendal Nezan grew to tens of kilometers of Diyarbakir , the capital of “Kurdistan of the North”, in the town of Silvan . Quran scholar player, his father is employed by the Turkish state to supervise the work of road infrastructure.

But the great secret of Kendal Nezan is one of his grandmothers. This is not Kurdish but Armenian, a survivor of the genocide of 1915. While other family members are killed (burned alive, according to a cousin), she and her sister rescued and adopted by a family Kurdish Turkey. This situation is far from being exceptional , it involved several thousand children and all Armenian girls Islamized by force, sometimes acting as servants, before being married to Turks.

If Kendal Nezan never spoke publicly -and rarely that private-grandmother, is that he knew that this information could be used against him and his family -its two brothers living in Sweden, but his mother still lives in Diyarbakir. It happened for example that the Turkish authorities denounced the alleged complicity of the “Armenian terrorists of Asala “with the” Kurdish PKK terrorists. “

Now the taboo of the Armenian grandmothers is largely lifted. Claim such affiliation is even almost become “fashionable” in the southeast, Kurdish, Turkish Armenian -quoique be treated can still assert injury from the Turkish ultra-nationalists.

Rather Maoism Marxism-Leninism

The young Kendal between the only school that has Diyarbakir at the time of the military coup of 1960: “My literature teacher was an artillery officer,” is he recalls. Then he leaves the “Kurdistan of the North” for the Turkish capital, Ankara, in order to attend medical school.

In Turkey, as in France at the time, the far left is divided into multiple streams and chapels. One of the cousins Kendal Nezan directs the student group which adheres Abdullah Ocalan , the future leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Marxist-Leninist trend, founded later, in 1978). Very quickly, it is suspected of being an agent of the Turkish services by its comrades in struggle; is the cousin of Kendal Nezan, in person, which would have made his deportation.

But the young Kendal’s more seduced by China as the USSR “If I am not mistaken, in the 1970 Kendal was rather Maoist.; he and my husband had rather lively discussion about it, “says the writer Gilberte Favre-Zaza , a Swiss writer, author of a dozen books and marries another great figure of the Kurdish exile, Noureddine Zaza , who died in 1988.

“May 68, Paris, the revolution …”

A year after the death of his father in 1967, Kendal Nezan decided to study physics at the University of Berkeley, in the United States. The Turkish authorities grant him a scholarship. The young man stopped in France. It will depart more. “It was May 68, Paris, the Revolution …”, he said in a rare exclamation movement, his eyes still filled with images. Paris then had “12 Kurds, at the most …”.

The young man is broke, especially as, soon, the Turkish state wants to recover the money from the purse he has allocated to the student that he guesses he did not have much good to hang on. Kendal Nezan lives frugally, odd jobs. “One day, during one of our walks on the quays of Paris, our young son made a remark about the homeless. Kendal, who has always been very attentive towards children, turns to him and explains that the homeless have received under the bridge when he had nowhere to sleep, “says Gilberte Favre-Zaza .

Moscow: Putin Meeting with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande

February 6, 2015 By administrator

The Kremlin is hosting a meeting between Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. Discuss ways to resolve the situation in the south-eastern Ukraine. Report kremlin.ru

Negotiations are taking place behind closed doors without the participation of members of delegations and experts.

France: ALFORTVILLE Opening of the exhibition on “book Talaat”

February 6, 2015 By administrator

Luc Carvounas, Senator Mayor of Alfortville yesterday inaugurated the conference “the book Talaat” organized by “Youth Nazarkek Hentchakian” on its premises at 148 St. Paul Vaillant Coururier in Alfortville. This exhibition illustrates the book Talaat, macabre record of deportations of Armenians died in 1915, was followed by a lecture given by Ara Safarian, historian and director of the Gomidas Institute in London. The exhibition runs from 10h to 19h until February 13.

Syria wants UN action against Turkey over Paris attacks suspect

January 22, 2015 By administrator

Syria has called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to take action against Turkey for allowing a French woman linked to militant attacks in Paris to illegally enter Syria along with other foreign fighters.

France launched a search for 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene after police killed her partner, Amedy Coulibaly, while storming a Jewish supermarket where he had taken hostages earlier this month. Authorities described her as armed and dangerous.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said Boumeddiene arrived in İstanbul from Madrid on Jan. 2 and that Paris had not asked that she be denied access. Boumeddiene crossed into Syria on Jan. 8, he said.

“That statement is a formal admission of a point that we have repeatedly made … that Turkey remains the main channel to smuggle foreign terrorists and mercenaries from around the world into Syria,” Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar al-Ja’afari wrote in a letter to the UNSC and UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

“The country is also a route through which they return to their countries or travel to third states,” Ja’afari wrote in the Jan. 12 letter made public on Wednesday.

Damascus has repeatedly accused Turkey of supporting militants during its nearly four-year civil war. Turkey denies enabling the passage of foreign fighters who have swollen the ranks of al-Qaeda-linked groups, but has faced widespread criticism for allowing thousands of them to cross into Syria.

Any action is unlikely as the 15-member council has been largely deadlocked on how to end the Syrian conflict, with Damascus ally Russia, backed by China, pitted against the United States, Britain, France and other Western and Arab states.

Coulibaly said he carried out the Jewish supermarket attack in the name of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a militant group that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. His siege came after two gunmen attacked satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Seventeen people were killed in three days of violence.

Ja’afari said Turkey, by allowing foreign fighters to pass through the country and into Syria, was violating UNSC counterterrorism resolutions.

“The Syrian Arab Republic therefore calls on the [UNSC] and the international community to take effective action to condemn and curb the Turkish regime’s policies,” Ja’afari wrote. “The Turkish regime must be held accountable for those policies, which endanger international peace and security.”

Turkey’s mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment on the accusations by Ja’afari.

19,000 French websites suffer cyberattacks since last week

January 15, 2015 By administrator

In what France’s cyberdefense chief calls an unprecedented surge, about 19,000 French websites have suffered cyberattacks since a rampage by Islamic extremists in Paris last week, the Associated Press reports.

Adm. Arnaud Coustilliere told reporters Thursday, Jan 15, that many of the cyberattacks were carried out by “more or less structured” groups, including some well-known Islamic hacker groups.

“That’s never been seen before. It’s the first time that a country has been faced with such a large wave,” he said.

The attacks, which appear to have involved mostly relatively minor denial-of-service attacks, have hit sites as varied as military regiments to pizza shops, he said.

French President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, insisted that any anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic acts must be “severely punished,” as he sought to calm rising religious tensions after his country’s bloodiest terrorist attacks in decades.

The country is tense since 20 people, including three gunmen, were killed in last week’s rampage that began at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The paper, which been repeatedly threatened for caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, was burying several staff members Thursday of the 12 that were killed.

Two of the Paris terror attackers claimed allegiances to al-Qaida in Yemen, and another — who targeted a kosher supermarket — to the Islamic State group.

The attacks occurred in an atmosphere of rising anti-Semitism in France, and have prompted scattered attacks on Muslim sites around France in an apparent backlash. They have also put many French Muslims on the defensive.

Hollande said France’s millions of Muslims should be protected and respected, “just as they themselves should respect the nation” and its strictly secular values.

“Anti-Muslim acts, like anti-Semitism, should not just be denounced but severely punished,” Hollande said Thursday at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris, according to the AP.

Noting that Muslims are the main victims of Islamic extremist violence, he said, “In the face of terrorism, we are all united.”

With 120,000 security forces deployed to prevent future attacks, nerves jumped overnight when a car rammed into a policewoman guarding the president’s palace. The incident at the Elysee Palace had no apparent links to last week’s shootings and might have been an accident, prosecutors and police said.

The car carrying four people took a one-way street in the wrong direction then drove off when the police officer tried to stop them. The officer sustained slight leg injuries, police said. Two people were later arrested, and two others in the car fled.

U.S. and French intelligence officials are leaning toward an assessment that the Paris terror attacks were inspired by al-Qaida but not directly supervised by the group, a view that would put the violence in a category of homegrown incidents that are extremely difficult to detect and thwart.

French justice officials have been cracking down by arresting dozens of people who glorified terrorism or made racist or anti-Semitic remarks.

Customers lined up again Thursday to try to get copies of Charlie Hebdo’s first edition since the attacks, which again had Muhammad on the cover. Even though it has a special increased print run of 5 million copies, it sold out before dawn Thursday in Paris kiosks for a second day straight.

Muslims believe their faith forbids depictions of the prophet, and some reacted with dismay — and occasional anger — to the new cover. Some who had supported Charlie Hebdo after the attacks felt betrayed and others feared the cartoon would trigger yet more violence.

A leader of Yemen’s al-Qaida branch officially claimed responsibility for the attacks by the two gunmen at Charlie Hebdo, saying in a video posted online that the slayings were in “vengeance for the prophet.”

The BFCA Fabius calls on a statement of the Ambassador of France to the USA

January 14, 2015 By administrator

January 12, 2015, France’s ambassador in Washington, giving an interview to Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, entitled “Why does France allows the provocations of anti-Muslim cartoons while laws in France say you can not deny the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. “

What, Gerard Araud, Ambassador of France to the USA, said: “In fact, on the Armenian genocide, there is no law on the denial of the Armenian genocide. There is one law on Holocaust denial because it is not an opinion. The Holocaust took place. So you know, you do not express an opinion when you say that the Holocaust did not happen, it’s a fact. But apart from the Holocaust, everything is permitted. Of course, if there is no defamation against a person. “

At the “result of these more than clumsy statements of the Ambassador of France to the USA, Mr. Gerard Araud on MSNBC January 12, 2015 to consider the Armenian Genocide as an opinion that could deny era, the French Office for the Cause Armenian wrote a protest letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, Laurent Fabius.

In the US, the NAFC has simultaneously launched a protest campaign calling with the Embassy of France in Washington. “Informs us BFCA.

France: A 16-year-old Armenian community of Marseille beaten to death

January 13, 2015 By administrator

Camille Julian High School of Barasse (13011) was the scene today Monday, January 12 as incomprehensible as a violent drama. A young French member of the Apostolic scouts, Armenian, Michael ASSATURYAN, has lost his life at 16 and a half, savagely attacked by a horde of young people determined to kill him.

The CCAF South, Coordination Council of Armenians in France in the southern region, condemn this tragedy and calls the court to act quickly. This premeditated murder, follows many anti-Armenian actions, and casts doubt on the nature of the attack. Violence strikes again blindly with savagery.

While a show of solidarity invaded France, condemning the hatred of the other, fanaticism and extremism, Marseille, following the great citizen rally, is a sad example of a situation that has deleterious for too long.

This tragedy highlights a climate of tension that prevails more in our neighborhoods, and our young are the sad victims.

This young man by his exemplary voluntary commitment only wanted to live a peaceful and serve his district and city.

The CFC, its sincere condolences, parents and friends of Michael.

He invites all who wish to pay tribute to this young activist, to come together this Tuesday, January 13 at 19:30 Armenian Apostolic Cathedral Marseille 339 Avenue du Prado 13008 Marseille

Azad BALALAS
Co President

Jacques Donabedian
Co President

Simon Azilazian
Co President

France confirms hundreds of nationals fighting as terrorists in Mideast

January 12, 2015 By administrator

The French prime minister says around 1,400 people from France have either joined Takfiri terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq or are planning to do so.

“There are 1,400 individuals who are involved in the departures … for terrorism in Syria and in Iraq,” Manuel Valls said on Monday, adding, “There are close to 70 French citizens or residents in France who have died in Syria and Iraq in the ranks of the terrorists.”

Valls confessed that there has been a huge rise in the number of French nationals fighting for terrorist groups in the Middle East over the past two and a half years.

“It is a massive jump in very little time: there were just about 30 cases when I became interior minister [in mid-2012] and 1,400 today” he stated.

France has been a staunch supporter of Takfiri militants fighting to topple Syria’s legitimate government since 2011. However, France’s vigorous backing of the extremist groups has backfired as terrorists allied with the Takfiris launched deadly attacks in the French capital, Paris, earlier this month, killing 17 people.

The Takfiri terrorist groups, with members from several Western countries, control swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, and have been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.