Turkologist Ruben Melkonyan said about the bill passed by the French Senate, but not yet ratified and submitted to the Constitutional Council, “We must state the fact that the French political machine, the political establishment, the president and the majority of the ruling party have basically expressed their position already. So, regardless of Turkey’s efforts to bring this issue to the field of law, the French political establishment has already expressed its attitude toward the Armenian Genocide. On the other hand, it is already obvious that Turkey, losing in the field of politics, should have brought this issue to the field of law and I predict that, regardless of the decision of the Constitutional Council, Turkey will try to use this issue in other, more inferior judicial instances all the time. On the other hand, I want to observe that this was a certain victory of the Armenian lobby and the Armenian foreign policy, since the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide was one of the priorities of the foreign policy of the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian lobby, cooperating with the government of the Republic of Armenia, was able to promote that issue. This was also a war between the Armenian and Turkish lobbies, which the Turkish lobby basically lost and Erdoğan’s hopeless words addressing the French members of the Council of Europe that there are also Turks, Turkish voters in France – that was the phrase, by which the Turkish government admitted its defeat.”
