07 01 2008 - - Armenian Church of Paris : Bomb scare

Sunday morning, January 6, 2008, Armenian Christmas Day, a false bomb scare disturbed the religious service of the Paris's Armenian church.

It's an anonymous call coming from a phone box located close to the Avenue des Champs-Elysees which started a vast police operation.

Arrived towards 11:35 AM, the police force carried out the evacuation of the church during the mass of Christmas, celebrated for the first time by the archbishop Norvan Zakarian, new primacy of the France's apostolic Church. Which refused to stop the mass and which one makes penetrate the dogs during the celebration. After a meticulous research of the police force in the crowned enclosure, without result, the faithful ones could attend the end of the Christmas mass.

Archbishop Zakarian relativizes the event. « I think that this is a joke » he said.

On October 24, 2007 in Brussels, the coffee exploited by a Belgian of Armenian origin had been entirely ransacked by a pack of Turkish ultra nationalists. They had also torn off the American flag of the United States's embassy.

These facts occur at the time when the French Senate must examine the penalization's bill of the Armenian Genocide negation and that of Res.H.106 in the USA.

Jean Eckian / Paris
Independant correspondent

Jean Eckian