French youths protesting
against a new employment law ended up in an unexpected clash
with Turks demonstrating against an Armenian memorial when their
separate marches crossed paths in this eastern city on Saturday.
Riot police used water cannon to separate the two groups
after about 2,500 Turks opposed to the construction of a
memorial in the city centre to Armenian victims of a 1915
massacre attacked the demonstrating youths, police said.
The Turks, waving Turkish flags and holding up posters
saying “There was no Armenian genocide,” reacted after youths
denounced them as “fascists” and yelled “go home!”, police said.
Both sides pelted each other with missiles and engaged in
fist fights, they said, adding that some youths protesting the
employment law were apparently of Armenian origin.
Turkey rejects charges that it massacred 1.5 million
Armenians living in the then Ottoman Empire in 1915.
Many of the survivors fled to France, which now has an
influential Armenian minority of about 300,000. After a long
campaign by them, the French parliament passed a bill in 1998
officially recognising the killing as genocide.
The protest against the new employment law was one of many
marches across France on Saturday aimed at putting pressure on
the Paris government to withdraw the measure that allows
employers to fire workers under 26 more easily.
The conservative government introduced the law to encourage
reluctant employers to take on new staff and help combat
unemployment, which among young people is double the national
average of 9.6 percent.
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