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Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Monday for a boycott of French products, “if there is oppression against Muslims in France.” It was the Turkish president’s response to calls from his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who wants measures against “Islamic separatism.” The breakdown of relations between the two countries seems to have centered on the case of Samuel Paty, a history teacher who was beheaded for showing cartoons of Muhammad in class. However, Turkey and France, both NATO members, have long found themselves on opposite sides of geopolitical disputes.
The positions of the two Presidents on the relationship between state and religion could not be more different. Macron is a staunch supporter of secularism, accused of tough tactics against Islam and even plans to introduce a law to monitor and regulate mosques; Erdogan leads an Islamist party, inherited a historically secular state, and set about destroying it.
The exchange of “flags” between the two began last week, when Paris called for the return of its ambassador to Ankara, in protest that Erdogan had suggested that Macron needed “mental treatment.”
“What else can be said about a head of state who does not understand freedom of religion and who behaves in this way with millions of people who live in his country and have a different faith?” Asked the Turkish president. His French counterpart, in homage to Samuel Paty, declared: “We will never give up on our cartoons.”
However, the tension is not just cultural. In the past, Erdogan’s Turkey did its best to get closer to the EU, but lately it has been on a collision course with European countries, particularly France: Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have already expressed solidarity with Macron in the face of insults of Erdogan.
When Ankara supported the Tripoli-based Libyan government militarily, on the other side of the trenches was General Khalifa Haftar, an ally of France. When Erdogan sent drones to support Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, France supported Armenia. More recently, France sent warships and fighter jets to the eastern Mediterranean to support Greece and Cyprus in a dispute with Turkey over oil exploration rights.
