Franco-Turkish visions of a Republic. Interview with Baskin Oran

Summary:

For a long time, the Turkish Republic created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was regarded by France's elites and political class as a sister republic: secular and Jacobin, the concrete embodiment of the universalism of the shared values of the French Revolution. However, the political change that has occurred since the AKP has come to office has questioned these classical republican convictions.

It has revealed the fragility of an ideological construction which had previously been locked into univocal political and institutional practice. The place of religion in the public arena, the recognition of minorities, the balance of powers and political pluralism are all issues that are henceforth openly debated and sometimes settled rapidly in Turkey, albeit at the risk of a certain degree of social disorientation. This begs the question of whether the republican dogma, or maybe a certain vision of the Republic, is weakening. There is no simple answer to this, neither in France nor in Turkey, as in both countries, the socio-political pact is breaking up and reforming in response to globalisation.

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