No question of "going into verbal overbidding".
After the threats of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, the Elysee has still not communicated.
The aggressive remarks of the Turkish president do not surprise French diplomacy, against the backdrop of growing tensions between the two counterparts for months.
The tone rises between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Emmanuel Macron, against a backdrop of tensions in the Mediterranean.
Saturday, during a televised speech in Istanbul, the Turkish president warned his counterpart: "Do not seek quarrel with the Turkish people, do not seek quarrel with Turkey".
"You have not finished having trouble with me", launched the head of state accusing the French president of lacking historical knowledge.
A new provocation which does not surprise French diplomacy.
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If there is no official reaction from the Elysee Palace, a source from the Quai d'Orsay tells Europe 1 that there was no question of "going into verbal overbidding".
Indeed, this statement is part of a long series of aggressive comments.
Thus, at the highest level of the State, no one is surprised by this desire to escalate.
The Turkish president is seen as a leader who "is waging five wars at a time," the senior official continued.
On Europe 1, Franck Riester, Minister Delegate to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, stressed that France left "aggressiveness" to Turkey which "is in the provocation".
Tensions in the Mediterranean
Between the two men, the tension rose over the summer.
Emmanuel Macron and his six southern EU counterparts on Thursday urged Turkey to end its policy of "confrontation" in the eastern Mediterranean and threatened it with European sanctions if Ankara continues to challenge Greece's gas exploration rights and Cyprus in the area.
Indeed, Turkey is claiming the right to exploit hydrocarbon deposits in a maritime area that Athens considers to be under its sovereignty, while France is supporting Greece.
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On the occasion of the summit of the seven countries of southern Europe, the President of the Republic had also denounced "unacceptable behavior" on the part of the Turkish authorities concerning the conflict in Libya and Syria.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, considered that France "could not teach Turkey a lesson in humanity" because of its colonial past in Algeria and its role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.