Turkish-French Relations Dodge a Bullet, For Now

With yesterday's ruling by France's Constitutional Council invalidating a recently passed law that would have criminalized the denial of the Armenian genocide, Ankara and Paris managed to avoid a further breakdown in their already strained relations. But while Turkey may now roll back some of the sanctions it instituted (keeping French military craft out of its airspace, for example) after the law was first passed last month and Turkish shoppers can safely go back to buying French products, this is most likely not the end of the contretemps between the two countries. 

A strategic rivalry is emerging that is compromising the ability of the West to respond cohesively and effectively to emerging threats. And this rivalry is damaging the EU's relationship with Turkey at a moment when both have much to gain by working together in the southern Mediterranean.

The relationship between Paris and Ankara has long been poor, but it has rarely been worse. Turkey was conspicuously absent from the meeting of leaders in Paris that, on 19 March, established the ad hoc coalition to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision not to invite Turkey showed how deep the rift between Paris and Ankara has grown.

Usually, acrimony in bilateral relations can be addressed through political dialogue and direct contacts between leaders, but reconciliation looks far away. Sarkozy's visit to Turkey in March added insult to several years of injury, by repeating his opposition to Turkey's bid to the join the EU. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was furious about being frozen out of the Paris summit.

The strategic rivalry could extend beyond Libya. France is actively looking for new interlocutors in north Africa, a region in which it has huge political, economic and energy interests as well as a long history. Paris is seeking not only to establish ties with the emerging leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as looking for new allies in Algeria and Morocco.

While the Constitutional Council's decision to strike down the denial bill may have prevented a full-blown crisis between Turkey and France from erupting, the decision does little to tamp down the rivalry between the two countries or to change the French perspective on Turkey and its place in Europe and European affairs. From Ankara's perspective, even with Hollande's promise to reintroduce the law, at this point the most positive development that could happen in Turkish-French relations would be a Sarkozy loss in the April presidential elections.