Protesters demonstrate in front of the French consulate in Istanbul December 22, 2011. Turkey has recalled its ambassador to France after the French lower house of parliament approved a bill on Thursday that would make it a criminal offence to deny genocide, a Turkish official said. -Reuters Photo

PARIS: Turkey has recalled its ambassador from Paris in protest at a decision by the French parliament to back a law banning denial of the Armenian genocide, a spokesman for the embassy said Thursday.

Tahsin Burcuoglu will leave France on Friday, while further measures in response to the vote will be announced in Turkey by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spokesman Engin Solakoglu told AFP.

The ambassador was to give a news conference at 6:00pm (1700 GMT) in Paris.

Earlier, the French National Assembly voted to back a law that would make it illegal for anyone in France to deny that the 1915 killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I amounted to genocide.

Turkey had already announced that it would withdraw its ambassador if the law was approved, and Ankara has threatened a broader raft of diplomatic and trade sanctions in the coming days.