Turkish fury as French MPs back Armenia genocide bill, recalls envoy from France.

Turkey recalls envoy from France over 'genocide' bill.(BBC).The Turkish ambassador to France has been recalled in protest at a bill making it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenians was genocide.

The National Assembly in Paris voted by a show of hands to back the bill by a large majority, and it will go before the Senate next year.

Turkey rejects the term "genocide" to describe the killing of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe publicly opposed the bill.

Under the bill, those publicly denying genocide would face a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (£29,000: $58,000).

Armenians say up to 1.5m people were killed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-16.

Ankara says closer to 300,000 people died, and that Turks were also killed as Armenians rose up against the Ottoman Empire when Russian troops invaded eastern Anatolia, now eastern Turkey.

More than 20 countries have formally recognised the killings as genocide.Turkish TV announced the recall of the country's envoy in response to the bill.Ambassador Tahsin Burcuoglu will leave France on Friday and further measures will be announced in Turkey by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Turkish embassy spokesman confirmed for French news agency AFP.
Earlier, Turkey's main political parties issued a joint statement condemning the bill, saying it "denigrates Turkish history", and there have been protests outside the French embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara.The bill's author, Valerie Boyer from France's ruling conservative UMP party, said she was "shocked" at Turkey's intervention. "My bill doesn't aim at any particular country," she said. "It is inspired by European law, which says that the people who deny the existence of the genocides must be sanctioned."Jean-Christophe Lagarde, an MP from the New Centre party, said: "Laws voted in this chamber cannot be dictated by Ankara."Maurice Delighazarian, 75, lost his grandparents in 1915."Our ancestors can finally rest in peace," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency in Paris.Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian thanked the French parliament for supporting the bill."I would like to once again express my gratitude to France's top leadership, to the National Assembly, and to the French people," he told AFP in the Armenian capital Yerevan.He added that France had "once again proved its commitment to universal human values".Hmmm....."Les morts vous saluent!"Read the full story here, more here.

Updated - Turkey freezes all ties with France: Erdoğan.(HurriyetDaily).Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday a bill passed by France's lower house of parliament, making it a crime to deny genocide, was racist, discriminatory and xenophobic and said it had opened wounds with Paris that would be difficult to heal. Erdogan said Turkey was cancelling all economic, political and military meetings with NATO partner France and said Ankara would cancel permission for French military planes to land and warships to dock in Turkey as a result of the bill. Hmmm.....move over Isreal and Cyprus here comes France.Read the full story here.