Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been feuding with France’s President Emmanuel Macron over the teacher in France showing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in a classroom. Amidst escalating tensions between France and Turkey, France condemned Erdogan’s declarations of violence and threatened the nation with sanctions.
Schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by a Muslim extremist, as showing any images of the prophet is considered to be blasphemous as per Islam. France and its President Macron has largely stood by Paty and condemned his beheading. Macron, defending French citizens freedom of speech said, "We won't renounce the caricatures." On Sunday, he published tweets in both Arabic and English, he wrote: "We will not give in, ever".
The PM of Turkey, a majority Muslim country Erdogan said, “What can one say about a head of state who treats millions of members from different faith groups this way: first of all, have mental checks.” “Macron needs mental treatment.” This caused an escalation in tensions between France and Turkey, with the former withdrawing its envoy from Turkey.
Tensions between France and Turkey have been on the rise since June incident between a French frigate and Turkish naval vessels after the French ship tried to inspect a Tanzanian-flagged vessel suspected of smuggling arms to Libya in violation of a UN embargo. France claims three Turkish ships harassed its vessel and even made signs threatening to fire. The incident saw France suspend its participation in NATO’s Mediterranean mission as it felt the grouping did not give it enough support in the dispute with Turkey.
France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine, unhappy at Erdogan’s comments that their leader needs a mental check featured a caricature of the Turkish PM on the cover of its magazine. Turkey was riled up about it and Turkish officials said the caricature was a “disgusting effort” to "spread its cultural racism and hatred”.
“There are now declarations of violence, even hatred, which are regularly posted by president Erdogan which are unacceptable,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.
While Erdogan has joined calls from other Muslim nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh to boycott French products, France's Interior Minister announced he would seek a ban on the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves group.
“It is not only France that is targeted, there is a total European solidarity on the subject – we want Turkey to renounce this logic,” Le Drian said.
“There are means of pressure, there is an agenda of possible sanctions,” Le Drain added.
Macron, in the meantime, clarified that he is fighting “Islamist separatism, never Islam”. “I will not allow anybody to claim that France, or its government, is fostering racism against Muslims,” Macron said. France is considering appointing a special envoy to explain Macron’s thinking of on secularism and freedom of expression to Muslim nations to quell anti-French sentiments in these nations. Macron spoke on the phone to the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to reassure him that he distinguished between terrorism and extremism and Islam and Islamic thinking on the other. Macron also gave a lengthy interview to Al Jazeera Arabic in an attempt to justify his approach.
While explicit and implicit critiquing of Macron’s thoughts on freedom of expression has startled French leaders, several Arab leaders have condemned the killing of Samuel Paty and consecutive knife attacks in Nice and Vienna known to have carried out by extremists.
