China said Friday, January 21 "
firmly opposed
" to the resolution adopted the day before by the French National Assembly, which described as "
genocide
" the treatment by the Chinese authorities of the Uighur Muslim minority.
Mostly Sunni Muslims, the Uighurs are the main ethnic group in Xinjiang (northwest China), a semi-desert region long scarred by attacks.
Read alsoThe National Assembly officially recognizes the genocide of the Uyghurs
French MPs on Thursday adopted a non-binding resolution stating that the National Assembly "
officially recognizes the violence perpetrated by the authorities of the People's Republic of China against the Uighurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide.
and that it "
condemns
" them.
The text “
invites the French government
” to do the same.
"
The resolution of the French National Assembly (...) ignores reality and common sense in terms of law
," said Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“
This constitutes gross interference in China's internal affairs.
China is firmly against it
,” he said at a regular press conference.
A qualifier regularly used by Westerners
Xinjiang has long been hit by bloody attacks attributed to Islamists or Uighur separatists. The region has been the subject of a drastic surveillance policy for several years. Western studies, based on interpretations of official documents, testimonies of alleged victims and statistical extrapolations, accuse Beijing of having interned in "
camps
" at least a million people, mostly Uighurs, of carrying out sterilizations and abortions. "
forced
" or to impose "
forced labour
".
China denies these accusations and presents the "
camps
" as "
vocational training centers
" intended to keep the inhabitants away from religious extremism.
They would now be closed because all “
students
” would have “
completed their training
”.
Before the French National Assembly, the deputies of several Western countries (Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada) had qualified as "
genocide
" the treatment of the Uighurs by China.
The American administration also uses the same qualifier.