France at good terms with Turkey again: a long-term perspective?

PanARMENIAN.Net - The new Foreign Minister of France is an interesting personality, and his career may come to illustrate many of his statements, both already voiced ones and those yet to come. So, Wikipedia says:

Fabius, born in Paris, is the son of Louise (née Strasburger-Mortimer) and André Fabius. His parents were Jewish and converted to Catholicism, and Fabius was raised an assimilated Catholic. Has two sons with his former spouse Françoise Castro.

After his studies at National School of Administration Fabius became an auditor for the Council of State.

Member of the Socialist Party (PS) since 1974, he was first elected to the National Assembly in 1978. He quickly gained entry to the circle of François Mitterrand, the leader of the party.

When Mitterrand was elected president of France in 1981, Fabius was nominated Minister of the Budget. In 1984, a government shake up by Mitterrand led him to be appointed Prime Minister.

He advocated a new kind of French socialism which accepted the market economy. The Fabius Government's inability to prevent both rising unemployment and inequality arguably contributed to the defeat of the French Socialists in the 1986 legislative election, which led Fabius to step down as prime minister.

Fabius was the leader of the defeated no camp in the vote that took place among the members of his party on December 1, 2004, to decide the stance that the party would take on the impending Referendum on the European Constitution. He went on to lead the rebel faction of the party advocating a no vote in the 2005 Referendum, and was seen as the spearhead of the whole no campaign in France. After the no vote won, the party leader gave an assurance that he could remain in the party though he was dismissed from the party's National Executive Committee.

Fabius was a candidate in the Socialist Party's primary election to be the party's candidate in the 2007 presidential election, but finished third.

He had once been in a relationship with Carla Bruni, now wife of Nicolas Sarkozy. On May 17, 2012, Laurent Fabius became Foreign Minister in the government of Jean-Marc Ayrault, appointed Prime Minister by President François Hollande.

It would be totally wrong to link the statement of the French Foreign Minister with his parentage or even the wish to “take revenge” on ex-leader Sarkozy. Everything is much simpler. Coming to power, Socialists began to rectify the history they believed had been wrong. Actually, this is common for all socialist parties. Yet in this case, the French Socialist Party went obviously wrong, failing to consider all consequences of this statement on the Armenian Genocide. The thing is not only the Armenian community in France which itself is a serious factor already. In fact, Socialists followed Turkey’s tastes, and France can hardly be viewed as a superpower now.

A country that went to change a crucial priority of its policy, namely the protection of human rights for the sake of weapon supply and dubious support of Turkey in Syrian issue, is automatically becoming a Turkish ally, will all successive consequences for Armenians.

In his “The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives" book U.S. politician and sociologist Zbigniew Brzeziński says:

“France is much weaker than Germany economically, while its military establishment (as the Gulf War of 1991 showed) is not very competent. It is good enough to squash internal coups in satellite

African states, but it can neither protect Europe nor project significant power far from Europe. France is no more and no less than a middle-rank European power.”

This is what François Hollande and his cabinet come to prove.

According to Turkish media reports, tensions were high in French-Turkish ties due to the bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide. As Nicolas Sarkozy lost the battle at the recent presidential vote, hopes emerged that the former bilateral relations would be resumed. Davutoglu will give a lecture on “French-Turkish relations in the changing international and regional environment” in French Institute of International Relations in Paris. Also, the Turkish foreign minister is quoted as saying: “If France wants to contribute to the settlement of the Armenian issue, we are ready to work jointly.”

Basically, France appeared to be more sincere than the U.S., which pledges to recognize the Armenian Genocide every four years and then well forgets its promises. Besides, on January 18, 2011 the French National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing the fact of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1923. The bill was endorsed by then president Shirac and became official paper. The thing is that the failed bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide is for some reason considered to be a bill on Genocide recognition.

If developments follow the same path, Laurent Fabius may further declare that EU is ready for Turkish accession. Meanwhile, François Hollande promised the Armenian community to get back to the much debated denial bill…