French democracy

At the beginning of the year, i commented on sentencing David Irving for denying Holocaust. I found in undemocratic and also ineffective as a way of reducing hatred and xenophobia in society. Now France is about to take a step forward as BBC reports:

The French parliament is due to vote on a law that would make it a crime to deny that Turkey perpetrated a genocide against Armenians in 1915-17.
Armenia says Ottoman Turks killed some 1.5m people in a systematic massacre, a claim strongly denied by Turkey. The official Turkish position states there was fighting, but no genocide; that Turks and Armenians were killed.

The genocide (which it most probably was) is a largly unsettled issue not only in Turkey (where people have been prosecuted for claiming it was a genocide), but in the region in general. Definetely this is an event that must be remembered and condemned, but also explained and discussed. Denying the right to do so does not promote better undertanding of the genocide and it works against any attempt of Europe to rise as a leading voice in pro-democracy foreing politics.