Armenian Genocide Memorial in Villeurbanne, France Desecrated

VILLEURBANNE — The memorial erected in the French city of Villeurbanne in memory of the Armenian Genocide victims was desecrated on July 3. Some letters of the inscription “Recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915” are now missing. The memorial had been unveiled in 2005 ahead of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by Mayor Jean-Paul Bret.

“The desecration of the Armenian Genocide memorial in Villeurbanne held the night of July 3 is a new outrage to the memory of the million and a half Armenians exterminated in 1915 under the command of Young Turk government,” the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) said in a statement, Nouvelles d’Armenia reports.

According to CCAF, this new attack, which came less than eight days after vandalizing Missak Manouchian statue in Marseille, is a new affront to human dignity, a blow to the fraternity between peoples and democratic values, also as a direct aggression against the Armenian community of France.

The statements emphasizes that this provocation months before the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide proves the need to adopt the law criminalizing the Armenian Genocide, as pledged by the former and current authorities of France.