The relationship between Turkey and France — which started with the alliance
between Francis I and Suleiman the Magnificent — is in precarious territory following the French Parliament’s decision to ban denial of the Armenian Genocide.
Turkey’s moderate Islamist government has taken as hard a line on the issue as previous Kemalist governments did, and has announced, in response to the French move, that Turkey would halt ‘all political consultations, joint military activities and manoeuvres.’ Not content with a formal rebuke, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to make the conflict personal; claiming (falsely) that Sarkozy’s father served in Algeria in the 1940s and would have direct knowledge of ‘massacres’ committed there by French troops.
The conflict is driven by political ambition on all sides. President Sarkozy is facing a tough battle for re-election in 2012, and the bill will ingratiate him with the 400,000-strong Armenian community in France.
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