When Armenians Take to the Streets: The 1979 March from Lyon and the Struggle for Genocide Recognition in France
This article reconstructs the 1979 march from Lyon organized by Armenian activists in France demanding acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide. Toulajian argues that street protest had a performative impact, consistently inserting the genocide question into the French public sphere through a transnational repertoire of activism. She shows how the marchers embodied overlapping identities at once, French, Armenian, diasporic, and global, and how the mobilization responded to both local French circumstances and international developments. The study situates Armenian activism within the broader landscape of 1970s protest movements rather than treating it in isolation. Methodologically, it makes a case for connected histories and multiple timelines as tools for understanding diasporic political engagement. The article appears in a special issue on law, activism, and the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide edited by Julien Zarifian and Edita Gzoyan.