Nicholas Sarkozy s oft repeated and blunt statements throughout his presidential campaign brought the Turkish issue into the center of French politics and reinforced 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 EU by, for example, Giscard d Estaing and, more recently, by almost the entire spectrum of Austrian political leaders. 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 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 stand 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. One 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.
Second, 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 five 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 AKP seems not to have overcome its obsession with allowing a certain type of women s headscarf (not a traditional Turkish one) 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 laicite 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) would 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 that 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, 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. (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, 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 negation of Armenian genocide). Even more surprising is the recent news that France might wish to return to NATO s military wing, an entirely credible shift of policy, given Sarkozy s priority to mend fences with the US. 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. Quid pro quo, 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. Evinis founding dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University. He teaches political science at Sabanci and is a member of the board of directors of Istanbul Policy Center. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org
