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PARIS / ANKARA – Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan called on his compatriots to stop buying French goods on Monday in the latest expression of anger in the Muslim world over images being shown in France of the Prophet Muhammad, which some Muslims consider blasphemous.
In Bangladesh on Monday, protesters unfolded banners with a cartoon of French President Emmanuel Macron and the words: “Macron is the enemy of peace,” while Pakistan summoned the French ambassador to Islamabad to issue a protest.
Erdogan, who has a history of tense relations with Macron, said France was pursuing an anti-Islamic agenda.
“I call on all my citizens from here to never help French brands or buy them,” Erdogan said.
In Turkey, French cars are among the best-selling cars, and overall Franco-Turkish bilateral trade was nearly $ 15 billion last year. The Turkish president has made similar boycott calls in the past, including a call not to buy American electronics in 2018 that was not followed.
Erdogan on Monday joined a chorus of voices elsewhere calling for a boycott. In Kuwait City, a supermarket had stripped L’Oreal cosmetics and skincare products from its shelves after the cooperative union to which it belongs decided to stop stocking French products.
In Saudi Arabia, calls to boycott the French supermarket chain Carrefour were trending on social media, although two stores that Reuters visited in the Saudi capital on Monday seemed as busy as usual.
While the immediate business impact of the boycott calls was difficult to assess, French companies operate in Muslim-majority markets around the world.
Asked about the boycott calls, Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux, head of the main French employers’ federation, said on RMC radio station: “Of course this is bad news for companies that have a presence there.”
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