PARIS, Dec 14 (AFP) - Days ahead of a crucial EU decision on Turkish accession talks, France on Tuesday used the word "genocide" for the first time to describe the 1915-1917 Ottoman Empire massacre of Armenians, risking further angering an already frustrated Ankara.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told parliament that Paris would ask many questions, "notably that of the Armenian genocide," in EU-Turkey negotiations on the membership issue.
Up to now, the French government had avoided the word "genocide", preferring the term "tragedy", although parliament voted in 2001 to qualify the events as a genocide.
Leaders of the 25 countries in the European Union are to hold a summit in Brussels this week expected to give Turkey a green light to start EU membership negotiations probably some time next year, while warning that the process could take more than a decade.
The leaders of Britain, France and Germany have publicly supported Turkey joining the bloc, although a sizeable section of public and political opinion in the latter two countries is sceptical amid concerns about assimilating a large Muslim country.
Several arguments have been raised against Ankara's bid, notably Turkey's human rights record, its sometimes fragile democracy, minority rights and its role in keeping Cyprus divided.
The Armenian issue has been an emotional annex to that list, with Turkey -- the heir to the Ottoman Empire -- disputing the scale and nature of the killings, and railing against the term "genocide" used by surviving Armenians and their descendants.
An estimated 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have died between 1915 and 1917 in the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
France has an Armenian population of around 450,000 on its soil.
Barnier, responding to an MP's question about Turkey and its ambitions of joining the EU, said Tuesday: "We will ask all the questions -- notably that of the Armenian genocide, notably that of Cyprus -- all through the negotiations."
He said the bloody events "are a wound that does not heal," and added: "This issue is at the very heart of the European project, which is based on reconciliation."
He admitted earlier in the day that a recognition of the Armenian tragedy could not legally be made a pre-condition for the membership talks, but he said it was "a question that we will raise in the course of negotiations, and we have around 10 years to raise it."
Barnier's decision to raise the Armenia issue was being interpreted Tuesday as a bid to reassure a French public that remains by a clear majority hostile to Ankara's bid to join the European Union.
While President Jacques Chirac has publicly stated his support for Turkey's eventual membership, he is opposed by a majority of his own Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) as well as many in the opposition Socialists. A recent poll showed that 56 percent of the public is against Turkish membership, compared to only 38 percent in favour.
Promising to ensure that the Armenian issue was submitted during entry negotiations is a way of signalling to the French public that the government has not forgotten their concerns, commentators said.
Chirac is known to be worried that the prospect of Turkish admission could sour French attitudes to the EU just ahead of a promised referendum next year on the union's proposed constitution, possibly even leading to its rejection.
To reassure voters, the president has already undertaken to change the country's constitution so that all future applications to the EU -- including Turkey's -- would have to be approved by a national referendum in France.
12/14/2004 17:10 GMT - AFP