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The Washington Post

French politicianValrie Boyer and her staffseem to like Wikipedia too much, maybe. Their admiration for the online encyclopedia will now beforever documentedin governmental transcripts, after the opposition politicianpresenteda draft law which was allegedly copied from the platformin large part. She and her assistants didn't even remove Wikipedia's footnotes, according to French newspaperLe Figaro.

On Tuesday, French media outlets exposed the plagiarism when they analyzed the law proposal which argues that France should recognize the Armeniangenocideduring the World War I under the Ottoman Empire.

As WorldViews reported earlier,in the final days of theOttoman Empire, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenianswere killed. Armenians argue that the killings were committed by Turkishsoldiers, butTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoganhas refused to acknowledge the historical guilt.

Speaking to Le Nouvel Observateur'sRue 89, anunnamed assistant toBoyer confirmed the allegations: "There are only few information on this subject, so the MP decided to overtake some wordingsfrom Wikipedia." The assistant was also quoted as saying that the copied sentenceshad been fact-checked before being published.

Boyer is considered an expert onthe topic among French politicians an aspect which has raised larger questions over how much politicians really know about the goalsthey pursue.

This tweet, published by an Armenian organization last month, appears to showthe MP during a commemoration of the killingsin Marseille in the south of France.

"In their haste, the delegates did not even takethe time to erase the traces of their iniquities. In their reckless and rude act of plagiarism they even copied the links leading to the original sources of the encyclopedia," France's leadingcenter-leftLe Mondenewspapercommented.

The incident has certainly shed an uncomfortable light on the conservative UMP opposition party, headed by former president Nicolas Sarkozy. The party had recently been shaken by a series of scandals and internal squabbles.

Sarkozy himself acknowledged in a recent interview with Le Figarothat his party's "brand is a little worn off." Last month, however, theUMP party made unexpected gains in local elections and can now even hope to winthe 2017 presidential elections.

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French lawmaker mocked after draft law copied and pasted from Wikipedia