ISTANBUL, Oct 10, 2006 (AFP) - Turkey's Armenians have raised their voice against a French bill that makes it a jailable offense to deny their ancestors were the victim of genocide under Ottoman rule, wary it will antagonize Turks and further strain an already tense debate on the issue.

The draft law, to be debated and voted in the French parliament Thursday, calls for one year in prison and a hefty EUR 45,000-euro fine for anyone who denies that the World War I massacres constituted genocide.

Among the first to condemn the bill was journalist Hrant Dink, who is among a handful of taboo-breaking intellectuals in Turkey who have openly argued that the massacres were genocide, drawing nationalist ire and landing himself in court.

"This is idiocy," the Turkish-Armenian Dink said in remarks to the liberal daily Radikal. "It only shows that those who restrict freedom of expression in Turkey and those who try to restrict it in France are of the same mentality."

Dink, editor of the Turkish-Armenian bilingual weekly Agos, received a six-month suspended sentence last year for "insulting Turkishness" in an article about the 1915-1917 massacres.

He is scheduled to go on trial again under the same provision, this time for saying the killings were genocide.

Dink said he was ready to defend freedom of expression even if it means running the risk of imprisonment in France.

"I am standing trial in Turkey for saying it was genocide. If this bill is adopted, I will go to France and, in spite of my conviction, I will say it was not genocide," he said in a television interview. "The two countries can then compete to see who throws me in jail first."

Another Armenian journalist, Etyen Mahcupyan, said Turks see the proposed law as an imposition on them to accept the genocide and feared the French move could scupper a fledgling, timid debate in Turkey to question its past.

"Initiatives like the one in the French parliament are awkward," he told AFP.

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