After several European countries and the European Parliament, the French National Assembly has now classified the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, which killed millions, as genocide. MEPs yesterday passed a resolution to that effect by 168 votes with just two votes against.
The Holodomor (murder by hunger) is “the story of organized barbarism” and “the use of hunger as a political weapon,” said MP Anne Genetet in an impassioned speech. In the presence of the Ukrainian ambassador to France, she concluded with the words: “Long live free Ukraine”.
The draft had been co-signed by members of seven of the ten parliamentary groups in the Assembly. MEPs from the extreme left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) did not take part in the vote, while representatives from the Communist Party voted against the resolution.
The National Assembly called on the government to also recognize the famine as genocide. In addition, it should “promote free access to the archives of the Holodomor at the international level, especially in the Russian Federation”. Shortly after the vote, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted “gratitude to the deputies of the National Assembly for this historic decision”.
