An official ceremony commemorating the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide was held in the French city of Antony on April 18, bringing together government officials, community leaders, and members of the public to honor the memory of the victims.
The ceremony took place in front of the “Eagle of Armenia” monument, erected in memory of the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and symbolizing the rebirth of the Armenian people, at the Domaine du parc de Sceaux.
Remarks were delivered by Armenian Ambassador to France Arman Khachatryan, French Government Spokesperson and Minister Delegate for Energy Maud Bregeon, President of the Hauts-de-Seine Department Georges Siffredi, Mayor of Antony Aude Nodé-Langlois, and Deputy Mayor Wissam Nehmé, who is in charge of public works, transport, and public procurement and also serves as President of the Franco-Armenian Club of Antony.
The ceremony also brought together other mayors, senators, deputies, representatives of French-Armenian community organizations, as well as numerous French-Armenian and French citizens. At the conclusion of the ceremony, participants laid wreaths and flowers in front of the “Eagle of Armenia” monument in tribute to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide was the culmination of decades of anti-Armenian persecution, following earlier large-scale massacres including the Hamidian massacres of the 1890s, which claimed up to 300,000 Armenian lives, and the Adana massacres of 1909, in which up to 30,000 Armenians were killed. It was a deliberate and systematic campaign of extermination carried out by the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk regime beginning in 1915, leading to the murder of 1.5 million Armenians through massacres, death marches, starvation, deportation, and forced displacement from their ancestral homeland. It was not only the destruction of innocent lives, but also the attempted destruction of an entire civilization, its churches, schools, culture, and presence on its native land.
More than a century later, Turkey continues to deny this crime against humanity, adding denial to atrocity, while the Armenian people still await full justice in the form of truth, accountability, reparations, recognition, and restitution.
