Its Turkish community starts going to the polls from today Thursday of France, where according to official figures 330,000 Turks live. In the 2018 presidential election, 63% of voters voted in his favor Erdogan.

About three million Turks live outside Turkey, most of whom live in Germany. Some of them start voting from today in the context of the May 14 parliamentary elections.

As Aurelien Denisot, PhD in political science at the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Cultures, argues in the French newspaper Libération, the fact that the majority of the Turkish diaspora in France favors the outgoing president is largely due to the fact that Franco-Turks “often vote according to their roots.”

He notes that many come from Anatolia, from where they came to work in France in the 1960s and 1970s.

“These are the least integrated, least educated and least skilled populations in France,” Denisot argues, pointing out that many Franco-Turks “support the choice of stability, a strong and charismatic man, with the added benefit of a politician from Sunni Islam».

As for the opposition, the Kurds vote mainly HDP, which in the last parliamentary elections received 19% of the Turkish voters in France, while the leader of the Turkish opposition Kilicdaroglu seems to be little popular. “We can’t even pay the rent for our small office,” Husein Cicek, honorary president of the CHP in France, tells Libération. “Unlike the ruling AKP party, which has been funding mosques, consulates and Turkish cultural associations, the Kemalist party does not have the resources to campaign abroad,” says Cicek.