France in favor of European sanctions against Turkey

France will advocate for "sanctions" at European level against Turkey at a time when tensions between the EU and Ankara are mounting on many contentious points, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs said on Wednesday. Clement Beaune.

"We will push in favor of strong European reaction measures, including the possible tool of sanctions," Clément Beaune told the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament.

"The last episode, which pushes back the borders of the unacceptable every day, of President Erdogan who insulted the President of the Republic, is revealing (...) of an overall strategy which is Turkey's to multiply all-out provocations, ”he added.

Erdogan on Monday called on his fellow citizens to boycott French products, a few days after Paris recalled its ambassador to Ankara after the Turkish head of state questioned the "mental health" of his French counterpart.

Turkey accuses President Emmanuel Macron of having expressed its support for the freedom to caricature the Prophet Mohammed, during a tribute to Samuel Paty, the French teacher killed by beheading for showing caricatures of Mohammed in class.

"It is always the same objective: to exert maximum pressure on its neighbors and particularly on the EU. We have been naive for too long," said Clément Beaune.

Sharp tensions in recent months

In addition to these recent attacks, tensions and disputes have increased in recent months between the EU and Turkey.

The discovery in recent years of vast gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean has whetted the appetite of riparian countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt and Israel and has rekindled disputes over maritime borders.

After a European summit in mid-October in Brussels, European Council President Charles Michel criticized the resumption of Turkish gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and recalled that the EU had planned to assess the situation in December with a view to possible sanctions.

Ankara is also engaged militarily in Libya, in support of the government of national unity, and in Syria against the Kurdish forces, allied to the international coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State, to which several members of the EU belong.

The Turkish government also supports the Azeri forces engaged against the Armenian separatists in Nagorno Karabakh.

Turkey is also under threat of US sanctions after having recently tested, to Washington's chagrin, a sophisticated anti-aircraft defense system, the S-400, acquired from Russia despite warnings from NATO. of which Ankara is part.