Deciphering France's Mediterranean and Foreign Policy against Turkey.

• Author: Yildirim, Galip Emre
• Position: ARITICLE

Introduction

Frances Mediterranean policy can be analyzed from a historical perspective and through the actual conjuncture related to its geopolitical and geo-cultural elements, such as the West-East civilizational dilemma and colonization background. Although these two elements are complementary to each other, they intersect with the political and economic interests of the Turkish state in the region. Historically, Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon III consolidated the French presence in Africa and the Middle East. This was important to constitute a francophone world in these regions and protect the political and economic interests of France. It was a common strategy for the colonialist powers of the 19th century. World War I (WWI) emerged as one of the reasons for the conflict of interests of these powers. At the end of WWI, the League of Nations established a legal basis for European colonialism through the mandate system. This was part of France's mission civilisatrice, to maintain the French presence in the region. The French Mediterranean policy was established based directly on this historical heritage. Since 1960, the Gaullist Administration followed it in accordance with France's colonial past. Therefore, France could geopolitically install its political influence in Turkey's political hinterland in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The fact that France tries to maintain its political presence in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean clearly challenges Turkey's foreign policy, and vice versa, Turkey's presence in the region also challenges France's foreign policy. For example, in 2019, the Libya-Turkey deal on the Maritime Boundary Treaty, in order to establish an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Mediterranean Sea, was considered by France as a real threat against the European Union (EU). From a geopolitical and geo-cultural view, France might suppose that Libya's southern neighbors, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Sudan, and possibly also its eastern neighbors, Tunisia and Algeria, would potentially be the next areas of penetration by Turkey, which means that the impact that France has on these ancient colonies would be at risk of weakening. In other words, the ascendance of Turkey's influence on the region could lead to a reconfiguration of the power composition in Northern and Central Africa, to the detriment of France, which tries to follow a leadership policy in the Mediterranean.

The will of France to be leader in the Mediterranean unfolds within the multilayered interactions of many actors, especially the EU, whose involvement complicates the relations between France and Turkey. In order to mobilize public opinion against Turkey at the national, European, and international level, French leaders have promoted an anti-Turkey policy that has concentrated on a strategy of supporting the stances of European countries, especially Greece and Cyprus, even if Greece has limited sea territorial boundaries within the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has resisted the maximalist policy of Greece supported by France, applying gunboat diplomacy to protect Turkish Cyprus and the rights of Turkey that have been ignored by France, Greece, Cyprus, and now Germany, The German mediation between Turkey and Greece can now be qualified as biased. However, some other countries, such as Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, and Hungary have preferred not to block the channels of dialogue with Turkey for certain strategic reasons. The political approach of Italy and Spain, even if it could not be completely defined as pro-Turkish, suggests that they would demand a more Europeanized Mediterranean policy rather than just accepting France's will to be a leader in the Mediterranean.

Turkey is now emerging as a regional power that is capable of producing its own policies in the Middle East, Africa, and the Mediterranean, and this is of specific concern to France, which has claimed leadership in these regions. In this regard, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has expressed that the government is worried about Chinas strategic influence, as well as that of Russia and Turkey, on the African continent. (1)

France's Mediterranean policy against Turkey has reached its realistic limits in the Eastern Mediterranean, and in order to influence public opinion and gain support against Turkey, some high-level French politicians have pursued a populist approach by instrumentalizing the religious cleavages in both France and Europe. This trend has helped France to apply exclusionary politics against Turkey from the European Union. As a result, French politics at both the national and international level seem paradoxical within the context of its national and European values. For example, the Quai d'Orsay, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, developed foreign policy strategies with Haftar in Libya and el-Sisi in Egypt, (2) whereas Macron has treated the Turkish position in Libya as a real threat to EU security. Additionally, the November 2015 Paris attacks in France were closely identified with Islamic values, and Erdogan's opposition to such rhetoric was spun in the media as the 'Turkish Question which, like the old Eastern Question, allowed French leaders to gain European support in the Eastern Mediterranean. (3) In 2019, Macron accused Turkey of sometimes collaborating with ISIS intermediaries, stating that "when I look at Turkey, they are now fighting against those who fought alongside us. And sometimes they work with ISIS intermediaries." (4) In addition, during the Euro-Med 7 conference in Corsica, Macron qualified Turkey and Russia as two destabilizing factors in the Mediterranean. (5)

The essential questions that then arise are:

(i) What is the historical background of the French Mediterranean policy that pushes the French leaders to follow an exclusionary approach against Turkey with a populist discursive strategy?

(ii) What strategies has France developed for its aforementioned Mediterranean policy?

(iii) What are the obstacles to these strategies?

This paper, therefore, attempts to investigate how France produced its Mediterranean policy, aiming at establishing control over the energy resources against Turkey through a populist and anti-Turkish discourse. The main hypothesis of this research is that France and French politicians focus on Turkey's Islamic and anti-European characteristics as part of a larger geopolitical strategy that aims at qualifying Turkey as an external threat to French foreign policy. French politicians have tried to base this policy on historical elements, similar to Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis, concentrated on the cultural and historical contrasts between the West and East. In this process, they conflate anti-Islamic and anti-Turkey rhetoric in order to consolidate European and French public opinion and convince their constituents that their aggressive foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean is necessary for the security of France and the EU, even if France and many EU countries have no maritime border in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, this discursive strategy has some limits when the presence of the Muslim communities in France and the colonial background of France are taken into consideration. This is why France's new policy toward French Muslims has failed and its aggressive Mediterranean policy against Turkey needs to soften, particularly due to the reopened dialogues between Turkey and Greece, and the position of other European countries such as Spain and Italy. The research method used herein consists of a review of the existing literature on the historical background of the French Mediterranean policy and a discourse analysis of the speeches of the leaders and of the media in France.

In what follows, the paper will first discuss the historical background of France's Mediterranean policy. Second, France's policy in the Mediterranean will be analyzed at the national and European level. Finally, this analysis will outline the limits of the French policy in the Mediterranean as a result of Turkey's position.

Historical Background of France's Mediterranean Policy

France's Mediterranean policy has deep historical routes that extend back to the 16th century when Ottoman Sultans granted France commercial and economic privileges in order to conduct their activities in a more secure way. France benefitted from these commercial rights, which were accorded directly by the Sultan because the Ottoman rulers intended to prevent an eventual alliance between the Habsburg and French Empires. Indeed, Ottoman soldiers, under the command of Barbaros, were hosted in the winter of 1543 in Toulon, in order to organize a military assault over the Holy Roman Empire. (6) This strategic alliance with the Ottoman Empire opened the door for France to develop its economic acquisitions in North Africa and the Middle East. In the 19th century, France's accorded commercial rights progressively turned into political hegemony within the Ottoman territories, in which the different European powers were already massively involved. The French campaign in Egypt and Syria in the 1800s weakened Ottoman rule in Africa and the Middle East and accelerated the peripheralization process of the provinces.

Given its advantages, France could invent an economic and political area in the Mediterranean in accordance with two approaches: first, the Saint Simonian perspective, as a peaceful project, and second, the intensive concentration of European powers' strategies on the total division of the 'sick man of Europe,' to settle 'the Eastern Question.' On this point, Chevalier defended the opinion that the sea could offer the opportunity for consensus between Western powers on the Eastern Question. (7) Ultimately, settling the Eastern Question required the establishment of a Eurocentric structure in the Mediterranean, to the detriment of Turkish sovereignty in the region. Thus the...