COMMENTARY: FRANCE’S SARKOZY AND TURKEY
Ahmet O. Evin

Middle East Times, Egypt
Sept 25 2007

Nicholas Sarkozy’s oft-repeated, blunt statements throughout his
presidential campaign brought the Turkish issue into the center of
French politics, reinforcing it as one of the predominant concerns
of European integration. Both the Turkish public and leadership have
become accustomed to voices raised against Turkey’s membership of the
European Union by, for example, Giscard d’Estaing and, more recently,
by almost the entire spectrum of Austria’s political leadership. But
Sarkozy’s obsession with Turkey, in the context of French domestic
politics, appeared to have been driven more by personal convictions
than policy considerations. Many Turks, in short, came to view Sarkozy
as an unrelenting Turcophobe.

Some observers, however, thought that a somber consideration of
issues would replace the inflammatory rhetoric of the campaign, once
elections were over. After all, Angela Merkel, who had been staunchly
opposed to Turkey’s full membership of the union, had to admit,
even if half-heartedly, the dictum pacta sunt servanda (pacts must
be respected) after becoming chancellor. It is true that populism
was one of the motivations to cater to the anti-Turkish membership
sentiments of the French public, but the fact that Sarkozy’s stance
continued unaltered after the elections points to deeper resistance
in France to Turkey’s membership.

The broad opposition in France to Turkey’s membership of the union
is linked to a range of concerns, attitudes, and perceptions.

Firstly, there is the French unease with enlargement, particularly
its perceived economic, as well as cultural, consequences.

Enlargement is seen as a threat to the domestic labor market
and capital investments, as well as to the Union’s coherence and
efficiency.

Secondly, France, host of the largest Muslim population in Europe,
feels more acutely the frustration of having failed to integrate
even the second-or-third generation Muslims born locally into French
citizenship. Not only are Turks, who represent less-than-5 percent of
Muslim residents of France, considered in the same category as Muslim
aliens, who put a wall of animosity between their culture-and-essential
French values (as some of the Turkish immigrants, who uphold their
particular values based on religious-communitarian priorities,
undoubtedly do), but Turkey’s membership is also associated with
the dire consequences, socially and culturally, of bringing into the
union a country of over-70-million Muslims, who are perceived to be
waiting to migrate to Western Europe, but remain strangers there.

The third-and-politically-most-significant factor is the existence
of an elite consensus in France that Turkey does not belong to Europe.

In this respect, the old guard is in full agreement with Sarkozy;
business interests and investment in Turkey are ignored in the face
of strong etatist economic culture. Opening the French economy to
global competition, as Sarkozy claims he will do, might ironically
reduce French apprehension toward Turkey’s membership, but only if
cultural apprehensions are also addressed by the political leadership.

Turkey, on the other hand, has unwittingly been sending mixed
signals that tend to confirm rather than diffuse French concerns. The
reformist, pro-EU, ruling Justice and Development Party seems not to
have overcome its obsession with allowing a certain type of women’s
headscarf – not a traditionally-Turkish head-covering – to be worn in
schools and other public places, despite even European Court of Human
Rights decisions to uphold the ban. A battle over public projection
of religious preferences serves only to confirm French (and other
European) suspicions of Turks being different from Europeans.

On the other hand, the French also tend to wince upon hearing, time
and again, from ideological adherents to laïcite (the concept of a
secular state), that Turkey’s modernization was based on the French
model. The French political agenda, they are quick to point out, has
changed since World War II, and the perceived need in Turkey, today,
to mobilize official support to protect secularism, only serves to
show how far Turkey’s Muslim cultural environment is from European
social values. Turkey’s difference comes into even sharper relief
when it turns out that the strongest secularist actor happens to be
the armed forces.

If particular features of Turkey’s political dynamics prove to be
baffling to outside observers, the variety of ways in which the French
(as opposed to the leaders of pro-Turkish accession countries such
as Spain, Sweden, and the UK, to name only three) identify and
call attention to the "otherness" of Turkey has been a source of
frustration to Turks of all political leanings. Turkish observers take
Sarkozy’s statements to mean "anything but Turkey’s membership of the
Union." Such views are reinforced by Sarkozy’s idea of a special role
for Turkey in the Mediterranean, which appears to have been floated
without adequate consideration of policy implications.

It will arguably lead nowhere, if lessons are drawn from the Barcelona
process.

Whither, then, relations between France and Turkey, given this grim
outlook? There are surprising developments that have come about as of
this writing. On the Turkish side, the prime minister’s forthcoming
meeting with Sarkozy in New York is a positive sign of engagement,
rather than rejection, in keeping especially with the "EU way of
doing business." On the French side, President Sarkozy, in a recent,
unexpected turn of phrase, has said France would not oppose opening
new chapters in Turkey’s accession negotiations, although he reiterated
his personal reservations about Turkey’s full membership.

Other significant developments have been the proposal to re-amend the
French constitution to drop the requirement, introduced under Jacques
Chirac, to have a public referendum on future enlargements. (Here,
it must be noted that this initiative appears to have been motivated
by reasons completely different from facilitating Turkish accession,
namely Sarkozy’s support for the Nabucco project, and his wish to
ensure French involvement in it, as articulated in his visit to
Budapest in mid-September. Turkey, as one of the principals, as well
as the transit hub, had, earlier, vetoed French involvement in the
project, in response to the introduction of legislation in France
to criminalize denial of Armenian genocide.) Even more surprising
is the recent news that France might wish to return to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military wing, an entirely-credible
shift of policy, given Sarkozy’s priority to mend fences with the
United States. In order to be able to do that, however, France would
need to secure Turkey’s approval.

The key issue is that France cannot be expected to override or reverse
decisions made by the European Council regarding the conditions and
procedures, in respect to Turkey’s accession.

Meanwhile, quid pro quo, (something for something) Turkey has to
resolve its own democratic deficits to qualify for accession, even
while fully protecting secularism. Exceptionalism, of the French or
of the Turkish kind, will not work in the EU, but peculiarities of
founding member states are tolerated for a longer period than those
of accession countries.

Professor Ahmet O. Evin is the founding Dean of the Faculty of
Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University. He is a Professor
of Political Science at Sabanci, and is a Member of the Board
of Directors of the Istanbul Policy Center. This commentary was
featured on bitterlemons-international.org. Acknowledgement to
bitterlemons-international.org.

imes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070925-060514-492 9r

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