The Turkish-based Syrian journalist and Mediapart contributor Hussam Hammoud was refused a visa by the French authorities on September 5th. A month later, on Wednesday October 5th, his legal team appeared at the administrative court in Nantes to appeal against this decision. The journalist's lawyers highlighted the vague approximations and errors in the arguments used by France's Ministry of the Interior to refuse him the humanitarian visa and called for the application to be looked at again. François Bougon reports.
With next June's Turkish presidential election fast approaching, the issue of Syrian refugees in the country has become a major topic for political parties. Politicians' speeches on the subject, repeated at every opportunity, are contributing to the growing wave of racism shown by many Turkish citizens towards immigrants in general - and Syrians in particular. Mediapart correspondent Hussam Hammoud reports from Gaziantep in southern Turkey on the plight of his fellow Syrians in the country.
Councillors in Strasbourg have just voted through a 2.5 million euro grant to help build a new mosque in the city in north-east France, a region where unlike the rest of the country the law permits local authorities to fund religious buildings. However, the move by the Green-run council immediately attracted the ire of France's interior minister Gérald Darmanin because the group behind the mosque, Confédération Islamique Milli Görüs (CIMG), is a Franco-Turkish association which has refused to sign the government's new “charter of principles” for Islam in France. The minister, who is championing the government's new law against 'separatism', is now threatening legal action. Report by Guillaume Krempp and Jean-François Gérard of Mediapart's partners in the city, Rue 89 Strasbourg.
Ties between French leader and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been tense over issues ranging from religion to energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
President Emmanuel Macron has championed measures against Islamic 'separatism' in French society, and legislation on the issue is currently going through the country's Parliament. This controversial move has handed Turkey's combative president Recep Tayyip Erdogan a fresh opportunity to portray himself as the leading Muslim leader standing up against Western Islamophobia. But as Nicolas Cheviron reports from Istanbul, behind the geopolitical considerations, Franco-Turkish Muslims have genuine concerns about the new measures in France.
Turkish state media have announced that the country's prosecution services have opened an investigation after the publication of a cartoon in this week's edition of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo magazine depicting Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holding a beer can and lifting a veiled woman's dress with the caption, 'In private he's very funny'.
In contrast to other EU and Nato allies, France has strongly backed Greece in its burgeoning showdown with Turkey over hydrocarbon resources and naval influence in the waters off their coasts.
Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also discussed growing tensions in the eastern Mediterranean and the coup in Mali, during talks at the French president's retreat in the south of France.
The recent decision by France to bolster its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean because of controversial Turkish oil and gas exploration in disputed waters is a reminder of how Ankara has been starting to flex its muscles outside its borders. Meanwhile Turkey has been quietly extending its economic influence in the Balkans, an area it once controlled under the Ottoman Empire but where it lost power after wars in 1912 and 1913 and then World War I. Jean-Arnault Dérens looks at Turkey's growing influence in the region a century after the end of its empire.
Weeks after an incident in which France accused Turkish warships of intimidating one of its frigates, the French defence ministry has announced it is suspending its role in Nato's Mediterranean operation Sea Guardian, accusing Turkey of violating an arms embargo against Libya.
