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| Row over anti-revisionist laws
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Claude Lanzmann, a French movie director. He directed the famous movie "Shoah"
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French intellectuals are divided over a series of anti-revisionist laws.
On 12 December, 19 historians signed the “Freedom for History” petition, demanding the removal of legislation on Holocaust denial and denial of the Armenian genocide, as well as a law that condemns slavery as a crime against humanity. They claim the legislation undermines their research work.
The call to suppress anti-revisionist laws was dismissed on 2 January by LICRA, the league against racism and anti-Semitism and on 20 December, 32 intellectuals signed a petition entitled “let’s not mix everything up” to counter the first initiative.
The debate over the legislation started with the controversial 23 February 2005 law on French colonialism. Its 4th article stipulates that teachers should tell their pupils about the positive aspects of French presence abroad.
At first, this guideline did not get much public attention, though it angered many blacks and Arabs. A few months later the media, the opposition and many intellectuals started criticising the law, saying it was unwise and even racist.
On 8 December, socialist MP Dominique Strauss-Kahn launched a national petition against the 4th article of the 23 February law, and on 30 December he gave it to the Elysee presidential palace with 42,000 signatures, asking president Chirac to remove the amendment.
Those opposed to the article say the parliament should be able to dictate an official history.
No limitation
But the 19 historians who signed the “Freedom for History” petition want to go further. They are opposed to all laws that impose boundaries and ask for the removal of the anti-revisionist laws.
Other intellectuals, such as Serge Klarsfeld and Claude Lanzmann, consider that anti-revisionist laws do not limit historians.
“The three laws don’t in any way limit the freedom of research and of expression,” they wrote. “Those laws only recognise certified facts on genocide and crimes against humanity in order to fight denial and to preserve the dignity of the victims offended by denial.”
“Those who wish to deny the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide have political intentions and not scientific ones,” they added.
The National Front is in favour of the suppression of the anti-revisionist laws.
Following criticism of the 23 February law, the government is evaluating its amendment.
Criticism from right and left
French Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy asked the young Jewish lawyer Arno Klarsfeld to prepare a report on history, legislation and memory. His choice was severely criticised by extreme-right newspaper “Minute” and by the anti-racist movement MRAP, which has poor relations with the Jewish community and Israel.
“Arno Klarsfeld is not competent nor legitimate for this mission because, as a citizen of the state of Israel he is a partisan of colonialism,” said MRAP chairman Mouloud Aounit.
Klarsfeld answered that he was in favour of a two-state solution in the Middle East.
“Maybe Mouloud Aounit is on the same line as the Iranian president Ahmadinejad who considers Jews have no right to live in the Middle East,” said the lawyer, “the fact that both the extreme right and the extreme left are criticising the mission I’ve been given is quite reassuring.”
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