The National Assembly recognized Tuesday as a genocide the Holodomor, this famine caused at the beginning of the 1930s in Ukraine by the Soviet authorities, at the origin of the death of several million people, a vote welcomed by the Ukrainian president. In a resolution adopted almost unanimously (168 votes against 2), the deputies called on the government to do the same, to respond to Kiev’s strong expectations about this painful memory, revived by the Russian invasion of country.
France has just recognized #Holodomor of 1932-33 as Genocide of the People. Recognition to Members of @AssembleeNat for this historic decision. The totalitarian regime of the Kremlin, past or present, could not destroy and will never destroy truth and justice! pic.twitter.com/0JKPplzOG5
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 28, 2023
Zelensky shares his “appreciation” towards the Assembly
“Gratitude to the deputies of the National Assembly for this historic decision”, reacted the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in a tweet posted in French shortly after the vote. The Holodomor (extermination by hunger), “it is the story of organized barbarism” and “the use of famine as a political weapon”, pleaded the first signatory of the adopted text, the deputy Renaissance Anne Genetet. She punctuated her speech with a “Vive l’Ukraine libre”, in the presence of the Ukrainian ambassador to France.
The text had been co-signed by members of seven of the ten political groups in the Assembly, with the exception of the groups La France insoumise (LFI), Communist and National Rally (RN). The Insoumis did not take part in the vote, believing that there were doubts about the genocidal nature of these events under international law. “No one can deny the reality of the crime” but “was it a question of exterminating the Ukrainian people as such?” Asked LFI deputy Bastien Lachaud.
The Communists are the only ones to have voted against, considering that parliamentarians were not legitimate to replace historians and judges. “We refuse to contribute to the politicization of issues of memory and history,” explained MP Jean-Paul Lecoq.
The acknowledged genocidal nature of forced starvation
The adopted text “officially recognizes the genocidal character of the famine forced and planned by the Soviet authorities against the Ukrainian population in 1932 and 1933”. It “condemns” these acts and “affirms its support for the Ukrainian people in their aspiration to have the mass crimes committed against them by the Soviet regime recognized”. The Assembly invites the government to also act on this qualification of genocide and asks it to “encourage on the international scene free access to the archives relating to the Holodomor, more particularly in the Russian Federation” in order to document the facts.
The Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Olivier Becht, underlined to the deputies the “obvious resonance with current events” of their resolution. He supported it even if it “is not in the habit of the government to recognize as genocide acts which have not been previously qualified as such by a court”.
Several million inhabitants died in the 1930s
Nicknamed “the granary of Europe” for the fertility of its black soils, Ukraine lost several million inhabitants in the great famine of 1932-1933, against a backdrop of land collectivization, orchestrated according to historians by Stalin to repress any desire for independence in this country, then a Soviet republic. In mid-December, the European Parliament had also qualified the Holodomor as genocide.
Russia, it categorically denies this classification, citing the fact that the great famine of the 1930s had not only made victims Ukrainians, but also Russians, Kazakhs, and among other peoples.