PARIS, France (A.W.)—Four ethnic Armenians—Danielle Cazarian, Nadia Essayan, Guillaume Kasbarian, and Jacques Marilossian—were elected to France’s National Assembly on June 18. All four Members of Parliament (MP) represent newly elected President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM), which won 308 seats with 43 percent of the vote.
(L to R) Guillaume Kasbarian, Danielle Cazarian, Nadia Essayan, and Jacques Marilossian
According to preliminary results, the LREM and its centrist ally MoDem will control at least 355 of the 577 seats in the French National Assembly. Three-quarters of the Parliament are new members and a record 223 of the 577 MPs are women.
Pascal Chamassian, A fifth French-Armenian candidate (LREM) was defeated by the pro-Armenian Valérie Boyer of the Republicans. On Dec. 2011, the National Assembly of France adopted a bill presented by Valérie Boyer, penalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide.
Patrick Devedjian, the 72-year old veteran member of the Republicans and the only ethnic Armenian in the outgoing Parliament, did not run for reelection.
Around half a million ethnic Armenian live in France—one of the largest Armenian Diasporas in the world. Ahead of the May Presidential elections, Macron and other front-runners appealed to the Armenian community for their support.
The Coordination Council of Armenian Organization in France (CCAF) officially endorsed Macron on April 27, ahead of his run-off election against Marine Le Pen of the French National Front (FN) party. On April 24, Macron visited Paris’ Armenian Genocide memorial to 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and told reporters that the memory of the victims “must be fully recognized.”