France President, Emmanuel Macron, has said that warned the Turkish government against interference with the 2022 elections.
According to Aljazeera, Macron told France 5 television that he wanted to improve the relations between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey which has been negatively affected by disputes over the conflicts on Libya, Syria and Nargorno-Karabakh and the Turkish accusations of Islamophobia in France.
“There will be attempts at interference in the next [French] presidential elections. I consider this to be unacceptable. It’s written down – the threats are not veiled,” he said.
Macron said this interference will be in the form of “playing on public opinion”. Erdogan, last December, expressed hope that France would vote out Macron as soon as possible stating that the French president was “trouble” for the country.
Erdogan has been softer in criticism this year, Aljazeera reports, and this has been a signal to Macron but he says he would only re-engage with the country when there were no ambiguities.
Macron said, “I have noted since the start of the year a desire by President Erdogan to re-engage. I want to believe that this path is possible. But we cannot re-engage when there are ambiguities. I do not want to re-engage with a better relationship when there are such manoeuvres.”