The executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Australia, Varant Megurditchian, says the community in Australia remains optimistic despite France's Constitutional Council ruling that a law making it illegal to deny the so-called Armenian genocide was unconstitutional.
“President Sarkozy has sought for the bill on the issue of the Armenian genocide to be redrafted.... So for us it seems that the process is a longer one than we had initially anticipated, but we seem to have support from the President to continue to pursue this bill,” Mr Megurditchian says.
He says the French bill is important to Armenians and Armenian expatriates, as well as other potential genocide victims.
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“The bill itself didn't include mention of the Armenian genocide - this is a widespread misconception. In fact it didn't even mention Turkey as a perpetrator. All it acknowledges is that in France, it is against the law to deny any genocide.”
France's Constitutional Council has ruled the controversial law, which would make it illegal to deny the so-called Armenian genocide, as unconstitutional because it infringed on freedom of expression.
France has already recognised the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago as genocide, but the new law sought to go further by punishing anyone who denies this with up to a year in jail and a fine of $57,000 dollars.
One of the initiators of the bill, French MP Valerie Boyer, is upset that the Constitutional Court has ruled that it infringed on freedom of expression.
She is backing a French government push for another bill to get around the ruling.
“Today, descendants of victims of the 1915 genocide can't be protected by acts of negation … I wish that in our country, when a genocide is recognised by the law that the negationists can be punished. It is a matter of justice, of equality, of human rights,” Ms Boyer says.
Turkey, which maintains the bill was discriminatory and racist, has welcomed the Constitutional Council's ruling.
But Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, says the cabinet is yet to decide whether to resume economic, political and military meetings with Paris.
“This verdict is still new. We will consider the subject of sanctions with the prime minister, president and cabinet … We hope that French government will also respect this ruling that has been taken by the country's prominent judges,” Mr Davutoglu says.
