Crisis management à la Recep Tayyip Erdogan: France has called home its ambassador.

The EU condemns the statement.

The net is boiling with anger.

Maybe it's time to back off?

Forget it.

President Erdogan instead continues all the way into the tile and repeated the insults against Macron on Sunday: "He is a psychic.

That is why he needs to be examined ”.

Called Merkel a Nazi

Mucking quarrels with world leaders is one of Erdogan's flagships.

Do you remember when, for example, he accused Angela Merkel of being a Nazi? 

It is also no surprise that it is precisely Emmanuel Macron who now gets to taste Erdogan's verbal snouts.  

Macron's fierce struggle against what he calls "Islamist separatism" has made him a grateful target.

Erdogan has long waged his own crusade against Islamophobia, and there is no doubt that the fighting spirit is strengthening his popularity at home.

Erdogan is seen as a fearless fighter

Fire talk about Europe's hatred of Muslims also resonates strongly in the rest of the Muslim world, where many see Turkey's president as a fearless champion of the religion's followers.

This is not without significance as Erdogan is under heavy pressure from the fact that the Turkish economy is on the brink of ruin. 

But given the timing of the play, one can still wonder if Erdogan has not crossed a line of decency, even by his own standard.

France is still shaken by the brutal teacher assassination.  

After the bloody attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015, Turkey's then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu went to Paris, to march in arm's length with other leaders captured in an iconic photograph.

French support in Syria a red curtain

Turkey's relationship with the EU is significantly worse now and Erdogan has raised religious policy to a completely different level.  

But Erdogan's rivalry with Macron also culminates in a foreign policy collision course.

France's support for Kurdish forces in northern Syria is a red carpet for Ankara.

The countries are on different sides in the Libyan conflict and the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan.  

France is also assisting Greece with warships in the eastern Mediterranean, which is provoking bile fever on Erdogan.

Turkey, in turn, has invested heavily in engaging in former French colonies in Africa, according to some critics of revenge logic that if you mess up my backyard, I intend to do the same in yours.

Wants to be perceived as a noble knight

Macron and Erdogan, night and day.

But despite the ideological opposites, they unite in the will to be perceived as noble knights for their ideals.

An evil tongue might say that neither Macron nor Erdogan are really interested in resolving the complex contradictions between the West and Islam because the enemy image simply favors them.

In any case, the populist aspect of symbol-laden fighting spirit cannot be ignored.