Who gets to be remembered under France's contentious 'memory laws'?

In France, 24 April is a national day of remembrance for the Armenian genocide of 1915, when Ottoman troops killed hundreds of thousands of Armenians. Other groups who were victimised want their plight recognised too – but getting a place in France's "memory laws" is controversial, and not an easy process.

"Memory laws are about recognition," says Christophe Premat, a former MP for the French Socialist Party and now an expert in memory studies at Stockholm University.

Under a 2019 French law, 24 April is designated the official day for the yearly commemoration of the Armenian genocide.

The date marks the beginning of the arrest, deportation and execution of Armenian intellectuals by Turkish forces on the night of 24 April 1915, which over the following years would turn into a concerted campaign that Armenia says eventually cost the lives of as many as 1.5 million people.

Oriental Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Christians were also subjected to mass murder and expulsion as part of the same drive to create a nationalist Turkish state.

At the time, thousands of Armenians fled abroad and pushed the story into international media, where the genocide was widely reported.

Many went to France, which became home to Europe's largest Armenian diaspora. Along with Russia and the United Kingdom, France condemned the events as "crimes against humanity and civilisation" as early as May 1915.

The Armenian genocide and its commemoration are part of a larger debate on the role of politics in marking – or taking a stance on – historical events.

Read more on RFI English

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