Mumbai to Marrakech
Edition 1, November 4, 2020.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s “Islam is in crisis” comment, his defense for the caricatures republished by Charlie Hebdo & the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty reignited tensions with Turkish President Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan & the Muslim world, at large. But the Macron-Erdoğan spat was for the world to see.
Macron and Erdoğan have always had uneasy relations. In August 2017, Macron had said that having to talk to President Erdoğan was one reason why being a head of state is not as cool as what people thought. In fact, Erdoğan had reportedly raised this issue personally with Macron in a subsequent interaction. In November 2019, Macron said that NATO was experiencing a “brain death” because of one member- in this case Turkey- going against the alliance’s interests in the Middle East.
Madhuvanthi Srinivasan is a journalist based out of Mumbai
The views expressed above are the author’s own and do not represent Takshashila Institution’s recommendations.
