Turkey furiously denounced the move by France's senate of passing a bill outlawing the denial of the Armenian genocide in 1915, with Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin saying it was "a great injustice and shows a total lack of respect for Turkey."
"We strongly condemn this decision which is... an example of irresponsibility," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a written statement, adding that the government would not hesitate to swiftly implement retaliatory measures.
"Politicising the understanding of justice and history through other people's past and damaging freedom of expression in a tactless manner are first and foremost a loss for France," it added.
France's upper house of parliament approved a bill that will make it illegal to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago amounted to genocide.
Al Jazeera's Caroline Malone reports.
