French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron has marked the 102nd anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in a brief ceremony in Paris.
ADVERTISEMENTFrench presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron has marked the 102nd anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in a brief ceremony in Paris.
Macron laid a wreath and observed a minute’s silence in memory of the victims.
If elected president of France in the second round of the country’s election, Macron has vowed to continue the fight for full international recognition of the atrocity as a genocide.
Current French President Francois Hollande was also at the ceremony. He was joined by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
French Election: Macron Lays Wreath At Monument To Armenian Genocide (FR BFM) https://t.co/8AajLEF1a9pic.twitter.com/oS2vCdVoPO
— ENEX Newsroom (@enexnewsroom) 24 avril 2017
What happened?
It is generally agreed that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died when they were deported by Ottoman Turks en masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian desert in 1915 and 1916.
Turkey denies the deaths amount to genocide but France recognised it as such in 2001.
The number of deaths is also disputed. Armenians say 1.5 million perished while Ankara estimates the total to be 300,000.