France's lower chamber bungles

The decision by the French lower chamber to approve a bill making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide is a shameful act. One hopes that the French senate will botch it. Failing that, President Jacques Chirac ought to veto it.

The bill was not a reasoned reaction to Turkey's law which punishes writers who affirm the Armenian massacre. An outdated Turkish law which curtails freedom is no justification for a 'countervailing' law elsewhere.

The French deputies would have put their time to better use by approving a detailed resolution calling on Turkey to repeal laws which curtail human freedoms. Europe is the land of the free and so it must remain.

Meanwhile, dissident Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Literature Prize, denounced the French bill, saying it flouted France's "tradition of liberal and critical thinking".

According to Agence France Presse, Mr Pamuk said: "What the French did is wrong." Pamuk, better known for criticising his own government, was speaking to NTV television from New York a day after the bill was voted in the lower house of the French parliament.

He added: "France has a very old tradition of liberal and critical thinking and I myself was influenced by it and learned much from it. But the decision they made constitutes a prohibition. It does not suit the French tradition of liberalism."

A year ago, on the occasion of the European Federal Council meeting in London, the European Movement (Malta) tabled a resolution condemning the trial of Mr Pamuk for insulting "Turkishness". The resolution was approved by the federal Council.