Today’s French press is extensively covering the results of the Turkish elections, with the newspaper Le Monde pointing out in its main article that the man who ruled Turkey for the last two decades no longer seems to be the undisputed leader.

The paper points to the dangers of Turkey entering a period of political and economic instability, given the narrow margin Erdogan has ahead, but also the continued devaluation of the Turkish lira. He also points out that, despite the economic problems and the tragic consequences of the last earthquake in Turkey, the Erdogan faction showed impressive resilience in the polls, while for Kilicdaroglu he emphasizes that the fact that he is an Alevi Kurd may have led many Turkish conservative Sunnis to vote against him.

Le Monde emphasizes that a major role will be played from now on by the position taken by Sinan Ogan, who, claiming that his goal is to deport the 3.6 million Syrians who are in Turkey, raised his percentage to 5 .3% of the electorate.

“It’s not exactly a victory, but it’s certainly not a defeat for Erdogan,” notes the French newspaper Figaro, referring to the election results in Turkey and pointing out the Turkish president’s statement that “he could serve his country for five more years”. The same confidence was shown by his opponent who promised his camp that “he will definitely win in the second round”, the French newspaper also reports.

For its part, the French newspaper Libération, underlines that after the end of a vote with mass participation that was held “without notable incidents”, the first counts give an advantage to the outgoing president, who “seems in any case ready to respect the result of the ballot box “. However, the newspaper points out, among other things, the opposition’s suspicion of the way the votes were counted, noting that Kilicdaroglu called on “the heroes of democracy” to remain vigilant even after the polls closed.

The successes and mistakes made by outgoing President Erdoğan during his two decades in power are finally recalled in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde by the Turkish author, Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk, who notes that for the last twenty years he has been in Turkey’s enormous economic growth, that there were changes that were not homogeneous, but also that in the last ten years everything was reversed and finally which changes were cancelled.

Orhan Pamuk describes the 2016 coup as “unacceptable”, as well as the revision of the Constitution in 2017, stressing that both contributed to the omnipotence of Erdogan, who, “locking freedom of speech and putting thousands in prison, turned himself into of a single, all-powerful leader.” He finally argues that what is partly keeping Erdogan in power is Europe. “On the one hand, Erdogan is criticized by European leaders for the restrictions he imposes on freedom of expression, for imprisoning writers, etc., on the other hand, major Western countries, such as Germany and France, are secretly happy together because it keeps the immigrants away,” he notes, pointing out at the same time that Kemal Kilicdaroglu has hinted that his goal is to expel all Syrian refugees.