The law making it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide has been invalidated by the constitutional council. The decision is quite interesting actually:
- It is right to forbid denying the holocaust, as it has been recognised by an international jurisdiction (the Nuremberg court)
- But it is wrong to forbid the Armenian genocide because it has been declared a genocide directly by the French government, so it could be used to censor anything.
It seems a weird choice to me(I'm French), but it makes some sense.
(http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionne... -- in French legalese)
Also, free speech isn't absolute even in the US, for example I think you must also have libel laws.
How can it be right to forbid denying anything whatsoever? That is thought crime pure and simple. Just because an "international jurisdiction" "recognised" it, doesn't mean a) they got it right and b) new evidence may not come up thus calling for a re-assessment of the whole thing. History is science, nothing is undeniable in science.
Also, free speech isn't absolute even in the US, for example I think you must also have libel laws.