“I wanted to highlight a project that materializes this Saturday, March 21, 2015, planting hundreds of trees around the monument of genocide. This plantation result of a partnership between the City Hall from the 11th and 12th districts and the association of Blue Cross of Armenians in France is a symbolic act of this year’s commemoration.

Thus, 100 almond trees and pomegranates will be planted around the memorial of the Armenian genocide, throughout 2015.

A tree is a life that lost during the deportations which 1.5 million Armenians perished, that many refugees tried to recreate after being hosted in 1922 in Marseille, the survivors and their descendants today are estimated nearly 80 000 inhabitants in the city of Marseille.

This space will become a “Memorial Park”, which commits the Armenian community but also the municipality to take care of the trees planted during this ceremony. The project to create the Memorial Park will be completed in the fall of 2015, with a second phase of planting bringing to 100 the total number of trees. This second phase will be funded through donations from individuals and businesses.

History, especially when it is a crime against humanity should never be forgotten.

Therefore, is necessary and urgent to legislate to propose a new classification of denial. I thus tabled in the National Assembly, a proposed new law, the fruit of reflection that I conducted with leading criminal lawyers lawyers. That is why I propose that denial is no longer considered by law as a mere abuse of freedom of expression, but as a crime against humanity.

That 2015 is the year of justice, memory and hope! »