Crossed encounters in Cilicia
France's attraction to the Armenians is based on a long tradition of exchanges, of which Cilician Armenia was the crucible. It was in this kingdom of Cilicia, which prospered from the 12th to the 14th century, between Taurus and the Mediterranean, thanks to the Crusades, that the French and Armenians got to know each other. With a maritime frontage with the port of Ayas, this kingdom occupied a place of first plan and close political links were woven between the Armenian and Frankish nobility, consolidated by marriages. The Armenian court was deeply influenced by French customs, as shown by the current use of the word "baron" to say "monsieur" in Armenian. The personality and fate of the last Armenian king, Leo V, give a symbolic dimension to these relations. Called to rule over a dying Cilicia, this prince of Lusignan, a Poitevin family ruling the Latin kingdom of Cyprus, accompanied the last days of the kingdom, which succumbed in 1375 to the blows of the Egyptian Mamelukes; they took him prisoner before sending him back to France for ransom. The last Armenian king was therefore a Poitevin lord, and is buried among the kings of France in the Abbey of Saint-Denis. With the disappearance of Armenian sovereignty, trade perpetuated the links with France. Dominating the trade between the East and the West, the rich Armenian merchants became the ambassadors of their forgotten country in Europe, where they established trading posts and colonies, particularly in France, where Armenia embodied in the 17th century a certain image of this fascinating and disturbing East. The Armenians became part of the French imagination, and Corneille and Racine gave them the leading roles in Polyeucte and Bajazet. The Armenians hoped that France would be able to help their country, which was torn between the Persians and the Ottomans, and once again believed in the medieval prophecy of Saint Nerses of the deliverance of Armenia by the Franks. Louis XIV would be the "restorer of liberty"; but the time of the Crusades was over, and Armenian plans to create a coalition of Persia, the West, and the Christians of the East against the Ottoman Empire came to nothing.
Armenia in the style of Rousseau
The Age of Enlightenment shines a new light on the Armenians. In France, where they settled in Provence and Marseilles, the hub of trade between East and West, Armenians aroused growing interest. Among them is Jean Althen, an Armenian born in Persia in 1711 and died in 1774 in Avignon, where the Calvet Museum pays tribute to the "first madder farmer in Avignon". It is also to the Armenian merchants that we owe the fashion for "cafés". The first Parisian café, Procope, was founded by the Armenian Pascal, or Artin, in 1672. These few known Armenians produced a "fashion effect" to which Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who dressed in Armenian fashion, was sensitive. Towards the end of his life, the philosopher called himself "the Armenian", justifying the wearing of his costume, made in 1756 by his Armenian tailor in Montmorency, by prosaic health problems. But his "Armenian" dress was not so much a matter of hygiene as of the philosopher's attraction to a style of dress that appealed to Eugène Delacroix, who wrote to his friend Soulier in 1850: "Here is one more conformity that you will find me with your dear Rousseau. All I need now is the Armenian habit"...". It is true that Armenia went out of fashion in the 19th century!
France and the Armenian question
Armenia, where Persians and Ottomans clashed, sank into darkness, while trade in the Mediterranean, which had made the fortune of Armenian merchants, declined. The Armenians turned to Russia, which was establishing itself in the Caucasus, forgotten by France. The fact that Napoleon's loyal Mamluk, Roustan, was Armenian will not change anything. But perhaps he inspired the emperor to create a chair of Armenian at the École des langues orientales vivantes, now in operation at the INALCO? Moreover, Napoleon, ruthless during the occupation of Venice, spared the Armenian Mkhitarist convent of San Lazzaro from the looting of the grognards.
It was not until the end of the 19th century, and the question of the East, that the Armenians reappeared in France. They looked for protectors other than the Russians, who had certainly removed Caucasian Armenia from Persian control and posed as defenders of the Christians of the East, and France offered an alternative to settle the question of the East, which had become a hostage to Russian-Turkish rivalries. No doubt French diplomacy would also be tempted to use the Armenian question as an instrument, while the rival powers came to the bedside of the Sultan, "the sick man of Europe. But at the beginning of the 20th century, a real surge of sympathy was expressed in France for the Armenian victims of massacres in the Ottoman Empire. However, the horrors of the Great War drowned out political condemnation of the massacres perpetrated in 1915 by the Turks, allies of Germany. France, in mourning, forgot about the Armenians; it was more interested in the Treaty of Versailles (1919) than in the Treaty of Sevres (1920), which provided for the creation of an Armenian state on the ruins of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, and it intended to defend its interests in the Middle East rather than those of Armenia, which had fallen into the Soviet orbit and into oblivion, as the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the gravedigger of Sevres, would show. The Armenian question became a thing of the past when Armenians fleeing the massacres in the Ottoman Empire, and then in Kemal's Turkey, landed in Marseilles in the early 1920s.Armenian refugees, from Marseille to Paris
For these refugees traumatized by the genocide, who failed in Marseilles after wandering from Syrian camps to Greek transit camps, France offers hope for a new life. But the myth of "Armenia saved by the Franks" has taken flight with the French ships evacuating Armenians from Turkey, shattering the dream of an "Armenian national home in Cilicia" under a French protectorate.
Torn between the feeling of having been betrayed by a country whose salvation they were waiting for and the recognition of its welcome, these Armenians, who, like the Russians, carry the "Nansen passport" for stateless political refugees, have one priority: integration. Often illiterate peasants, with only their faith in Franco-Armenian friendship as their baggage, they face the rejection of a society ravaged by war. These Armenians are therefore working discreetly to integrate themselves, or rather their children, into a community that is now 600,000 strong. From Marseilles, they travelled up the Rhone River to Paris, working wherever there was a need for labour that was lacking after the War, gathering together in tightly knit communities in Valence, Saint-Etienne, Lyon or Grenoble. But these former peasants or craftsmen were rather individualistic. In Paris, they preferred the suburbs, where they built their pavilions with gardens. At the factory, they prefer working at home with their families, or in small shops. As "Nansen" refugees, they fulfilled their military duties as Frenchmen in 1939-1945, sometimes making their mark in the Resistance, such as the communist Missak Manouchian, who was shot on Mount Valérien with his "Red Poster" comrades.From the struggle for integration to the desire for recognition
They are therefore French citizens, even if a few thousand, succumbing to the sirens of propaganda, settle in Soviet Armenia. Displaying a fierce desire for integration, they do not deny their origins, betrayed by the "ian" infancy of their surnames, speak Armenian and practise their religion without ostentation. They have an intense associative and political life, articulated around the three national parties in exile, which has contributed to the emergence of a strong national consciousness in the third generation, that of the "right to be different", which brings them out of anonymity: from 1975 to 1983, a wave of attacks targeting Turkish interests in the world brought the Armenian question up to date. While condemning these attacks, Armenians saw these terrorists from the diaspora as vigilantes who would call on the world to repair the great injustice done to their nation. Organizations are taking over, leading a peaceful struggle to spread the "Armenian cause" and put pressure on the political class. This lobbying, whose first relay is at the level of municipalities with a large Armenian population, aims at a recognition of the genocide by France, while Turkey multiplies the pressures to dissuade it. However, Armenia returned to the forefront of current events with the earthquake of 7 December 1988, which gave rise to a vast outpouring of generosity, and its accession to independence in 1991 opened a new front for the community, which mobilised for its development and the defence of Karabagh.
State-to-State relations
France was the first Western state to open its embassy in Yerevan in 1992; it is also involved in the process of settling the Karabagh conflict, co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group. On 19 January 2001, the French Parliament passed a law establishing "France's recognition of the genocide of Armenians in 1915". For the Armenians, this was a step forward in an international process aimed at convincing Turkey to come to terms with its past and to reconcile with Armenia. In order to carry out this struggle, the community set up a Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF), at the same time as the "Year of Armenia" presents this country to the French public from September 2006 to July 2007. It was kicked off by President Chirac's visit to Armenia, the first visit of a Western head of state to Yerevan, where he inaugurated the Place de la France, a symbol of friendship. In October 2011, N. Sarkozy also visited Yerevan, followed by F. Hollande, the main Western leader present, on April 24, 2015, at the centenary of the genocide, and by E. Macron, who in October 2018 will participate in the 17th summit of the Organisation of the Francophonie, of which Armenia is a member. Shortly before, he paid a national homage, at Les Invalides, to Charles Aznavour, who died on October1, which was an opportunity to recall the special link between France and Armenia embodied by the French-Armenian artist, who was made sacred in Armenia, as attested by the existence of the Aznavour Center in Yerevan. Sacrificing himself to a tradition inaugurated by F. Hollande, E. Macron also attended the dinners of the CCAF, a major annual gathering of the Armenian community; it was there that he announced in February 2019, the designation of April 24 as Armenian Genocide Day, marked each year by a unitary gathering in front of the statue in Paris of the composer Gomidas, a survivor of the genocide. Also in 2018, the emergence of a "New Armenia" gave rise to hope in this community, frustrated by the fact that it was only a supporting force in the state-to-state relations between Yerevan and Paris, of a more active participation in the life of Armenia, beyond financial aid and lobbying.
