Bagis slams French bill

Speaking at the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) Beyoglu district congress over the weekend, EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis criticized the approval of a bill at French Parliament last week to penalize denial of Armenian allegations regarding the events of 1915. Stating that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has put forth an anti-Turkish stance in order to gain extreme rightists' votes in the upcoming elections, Bagis said, "It has not been brought to the Senate yet. We believe that the Constitutional Court in France would reject this, even if approved by the Senate, because the approval of bill is not only noncompliance with principles of the French Revolution, but also unreasonable and inconsiderate." Bagis added that Turkey implemented the reforms not because the EU wants it, but in order to increase its own standards.