The bill, which was approved by the lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, in December, will criminalize denial that the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 was genocide.
A total of 126 French senators voted in favour of the bill and 86 against, while 24 senators abstained, according to figures reported by the Senate. One hundred and eleven senators did not take part in the vote.
The bill will now be sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy who has to approve it before parliament takes a break at the end of February ahead of the presidential election.
The president is expected to sign the bill into law, as it was his party, the UMP, that submitted the bill.
Under the law, denial of genocide is punishable by a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros ($57,000).
The bill has triggered outrage in Turkey. Speaking after the National Assembly passed the bill, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused France of hypocrisy and Sarkozy of pandering to the vote of France's estimated 400,000 voters of Armenian origin three months.
"I hope the Senate will not make France a country contradicting its own values," Erdogan said. "This is a debate which is entirely against freedom of thought. This is merely a step taken for the upcoming elections."
Speaking before the vote on Monday, he vowed never to go to France if the bill were passed.
Around 15,000 Turks from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg rallied peacefully on the streets of Paris on Saturday to
protest against the law.
As the debate began on Monday, Turks and Armenians staged
demonstrations outside the Senate with police keeping them some distance
apart.
Azerbaijan has expressed support for Turkey over the bill. The Foreign Ministry summoned French Ambassador Gabriel Keller on 19 January to express Azerbaijan's protest at the forthcoming debate. The Azerbaijani parliament, the Milli Majlis, on 30 December appealed to the French Senate to "take a cautious approach to distant historical events".
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