The draft law - which has provoked the fury of Turkey, the modern state that emerged from the Ottoman Empire - will now be sent to the Senate, or upper house of parliament, for another vote.
If it becomes law, it would make it a crime in France to deny that the killings of the Armenians were genocide. Those violating the law would face up to one year in prison and a fine of up to €45,000 ($57,000).
Ankara reacted swiftly, with the foreign ministry saying that France had dealt "a heavy blow" to its relations with Turkey, while parliament speaker Bulent Arinc called the vote "shameful" and reflecting a "hostile attitude."
Turkey has threatened economic reprisals against France if the legislation passes, warning that French firms could be excluded from public tenders and that a boycott of French goods might be imposed.
The MPs in the lower house, the National Assembly, passed the bill, introduced by the opposition Socialist Party, by 106 votes to 19.
Most of the parliamentarians from President Jacques Chirac's ruling conservative party were absent from the 577-seat chamber for the vote.
The vote was the first step in what could be a lengthy legislative passage for the bill, which has supporters and opponents ranged across party lines.
Turkey, though, is united in slamming the draft law.
"If the bill is adopted, Turkey will not lose anything, but France will lose not only Turkey, but something of itself as well," Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul said Wednesday.
Ankara contests the term "genocide" for the killings and strongly opposes the bill's provisions.
It says that 300,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence and sided with invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire fell apart during World War I.
Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were slaughtered in orchestrated killings that can only be seen as genocide.
Around 400,000 people of Armenian origin are estimated to live in France, the most famous being the singer Charles Aznavour, born Chahnour Varinag Aznavourian to immigrant parents.
One French MP of Armenian descent, Patrick Devedjian, who belongs to the ruling UMP party, told RTL radio that "I see no reason why the right shouldn't vote" in favor of the bill.
He said that an amendment that he had attached to it that would exclude scientists, historians, and academics from the provision of the law made the bill "more reasonable."
Turkey was simply trying to employ "denial propaganda" over the Armenian killings, he claimed.
A Socialist MP, Jean-Michel Boucheron, took an opposing position, saying "no parliament has the right to impose an 'official' history, especially regarding a foreign country ... What would we say if the Turkish parliament tried to shape France's history?"
France in 2001 already adopted a law officially calling the massacres a genocide - sparking a first found of Turkish anger that had short-lived negative consequences for French firms in Turkey.
The new bill would go further by making it illegal to deny that genocide took place, much in the way that denial of the Holocaust during World War II is a crime in France.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the proposed law "a blunder" and Turkish newspapers Thursday were scathing in saying that the bill undermined France's commitment to freedom of expression.
"Liberty, equality, and stupidity," was how one daily, Hurriyet, headlined its opinion.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse