French Senate urges government to recognize Holodomor famine as 'genocide'

By Esra Taskin

PARIS (AA) - The French Senate passed a resolution Wednesday recognizing the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine, commonly known as the Holodomor, as a "genocide."

The resolution, proposed by Senator Joelle Garriaud-Maylam from the Republicans party, passed with 327 “yes” votes against 16 “no” votes.

The senators called on the French government to recognize and condemn the Holodomor as a "genocide" as part of the resolution.

The Holodomor was recognized as a "genocide" by the French National Assembly on March 28.

At least 3.9 million people starved to death between 1932 and 1933 as a result of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's policies and the "collectivization" of agriculture, according to the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.

The Soviet Union implemented the collectivization of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 to integrate individual landholdings and labor into collectively controlled and state-controlled farms. It affected a significant part of the west and south of the USSR.

Estimates conclude that 5.7 million to 8.7 million people died from famine across the Soviet Union.

Ukraine claims that the famine on its territory was "intentional" and has called it a "genocide of the Ukrainian people."​​​​​​​