Book excerpt: The French National Assembly adoption of a bill penalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide (12 October 2006) stokes the vigorous national debate on the connection between genocide denial and law and, more generally, between history and law. The main criticism expressed by the detractors of laws against negationism - in particular historians - is the following: penalization of genocide denial constitutes a violation of freedom of expression and, as such, represents a threat to democracy. The thesis developed here is that, in France, anti denial laws and freedom of speech are not irreconcilable in view of three main elements that must be considered jointly: first, the relativity of the protection of free speech considering French as well as European human rights law; second, the legal limitations of the prohibition of genocide denial given the existing case law related to the 1990 Gayssot Law; third, the significance of genocide denial.