Turkey’s Erdogan renews call for France’s Macron to undergo mental checks

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday renewed his call for his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to undergo mental checks, a day after his comments prompted Paris to recall its envoy to Ankara.

The Turkish leader accused Macron of being “obsessed with Erdogan day and night”, in a televised speech in the eastern Anatolian city of Malatya.

“(Macron) is a case and therefore he really needs to have (mental) checks,” he said.

Relations between Macron and Erdogan have become increasingly strained over a number of issues.

They include French support for Greece in its dispute with Turkey over maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean, and French criticism of Turkey’s involvement in Libya, Syria and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Macron’s policies to defend his country against “radical Islam” have angered Turkey, which is predominantly Muslim if officially a secular country.

The debate over France’s policies toward Muslims was given new impetus by the murder this month in France of a teacher who showed his class a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

On Sunday, Erdogan also took aim at Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders who shared a defamatory cartoon of the Turkish leader on Twitter.

“Know your limits,” said Erdogan. “Fascism is not in our book, fascism is in your book.”