As the countdown to the elections to be held on 14 May continues, the French media carried the statements of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance, to their headlines.
The French official media outlet AFP used the headline “Erdogan’s opponent broke taboos by talking about being Alevi”. “Kılıçdaroğlu talked about being an Alevi, which is a taboo in Turkish politics,” the news said.
Reminding that Erdogan has blamed Alevis in the past, AFP said, “Kılıçdaroğlu never hid his Alevi identity, but rarely spoke about this issue. Polls show that 74-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu is close to winning the cut-throat elections. Kılıçdaroğlu preferred the social media platform Twitter in the country, where most of the media is close to the government.
“CREATE A SENSE”
In the news, “Little less than a month before the vote, which is shown as the most important election of the strategic country after the Ottoman Empire, Kılıçdaroğlu’s message created a sensation. His tweet was viewed nearly 50 million times and forced Erdogan’s government to respond.
It was also stated in the news that Turkish Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu responded to Kılıçdaroğlu’s Alevi outburst.
While it was noted that Kılıçdaroğlu’s statements received congratulatory messages, AFP especially highlighted the support message of the Saadet Party. In the news, “Saadet, the conservative party that moved away from Erdoğan and joined Kılıçdaroğlu’s alliance, shared a message of support. The Felicity Party published Kılıçdaroğlu’s post and said, “We can put an end to this distorted order all together, by choosing good morals, justice, fairness and sincerity, rather than polarization, marginalization and “identity politics”.
