Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to bully against Emmanuel Macron

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The tensions between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (left) and Emmanuel Macron continue.

(Archive picture from 2018)

Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP

Against the background of growing tensions between Ankara and Paris, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has again railed against French President Emmanuel Macron.

He hoped the French would get rid of their head of state "as soon as possible," Erdoğan said on Friday.

"Macron is a problem for France," he told journalists in Istanbul.

"With Macron, France is living in a very dangerous time."

With Macron as president, he sees no way of getting rid of the yellow vest protest movement in France, Erdoğan said.

"The yellow vests could become red vests," he also warned, without going into what he meant by that.

"Insults between political leaders are not a good method"

Macron reacted cautiously to the new attacks from Ankara.

In an interview with the online platform »Brut« he said on Friday: »I believe in respect.

Insults between political leaders are not a good method. "

Relations between Turkey and France have increasingly deteriorated since last year.

The triggers were, among other things, the dispute over gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean and the fighting over the Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where Turkey intervened militarily on the side of Azerbaijan.

As part of the so-called Minsk Group, France failed in the task of finding a peaceful solution to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

An armistice was finally reached with the mediation of Russia.

Last month, the French Senate passed a non-binding resolution calling on the Paris government to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state.

Tensions intensified after Islamist attacks

Erdoğan then accused France of having given up its "mediator role" in the conflict.

He repeated a mocking remark by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that France should cede its city of Marseilles to Armenia if it was so eager to create a new state.

The tensions between Paris and Ankara reached their preliminary climax at the end of October when Macron announced, after several Islamist attacks, that he would step up action against "radical Islam" in France.

Erdoğan, in response, recommended Macron to have his "mental health checked."

He called on the Turkish population to boycott French goods.

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