Davutoglu slams French bill

Speaking to reporters prior to voting of the French bill aimed at penalizing denial of alleged Armenian genocide in France, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said yesterday that he has evaluated the issue with his French counterpart Alain Juppe on the phone, telling him that the adoption of bill would lead to considerably serious consequences. Furthermore, in an article published in the French daily Liberation, Davutoglu evaluated the "nonsensical" French bill, saying, "A state that dictates to society what it cannot say is equally dictating to society what it can say and this is where the real danger lies." In an interview with the French daily Le Monde, Davutoglu also defined the bill as an attack to Turkey's national dignity. "When Prophet Mohammed is attacked, Europeans define it as freedom of expression. But now they are trying to punish an idea. We will not let such narrow-minded political calculations kill our values," said Davutoglu.