Armenian couple name their baby ‘Sarkozy’ in honor of France vote

Somewhere in Armenia, a couple is burping their little baby Sarkozy right now.

An Armenian couple has named their newborn baby boy after the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in thanks for the French Senate vote that has been passed, which outlaws denial of the genocide of Armenians during World War I, the AFP reported.

"We were going to name the baby after his grandfather, but after the French Senate passed the bill despite threats from the Turks, we decided to name him in honor of the president of France, this brave man," the baby's grandmother Alvard Manukian told AFP.

Read more at GlobalPost: France's genocide bill: A new blow to Turkey's EU aspirations

Armenians have praised Sarkozy for backing the bill which outlaws the denial that Ottoman Turks killed Armenians by the masses in 1915, Al Jazeera reported.

"Let our baby, Sarkozy Avetisian, become a man as brave and just as his namesake," his grandmother said, the AFP reported.

The bill has made Turkey, France’s NATO ally, furious, causing the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to blast the French parliament on Tuesday, Reuters reported. He did say he believed there was still the possibility that Armenia “would correct its mistake,” Reuters reported.

The draft law was approved by the French Senate on Monday, although it was backed by the lower house in December.

"We will not allow anyone to gain political benefit at the expense of Turkey; the bill which was passed in France is clearly discriminatory, racist," Erdogan said, Reuters reported.

While Armenia has said that planned massacres and deportations in 1915 left more than 1.5 million people dead, Turkey had said the number was up to 500,000 and called the bloodshed “civil strife,” the AFP reported.

Read more at GlobalPost: Turkey warns France over Armenian genocide bill