Strongly established in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (AURA) region, the Turkish community voted for Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the first round of the Turkish presidential election on May 14. The second region of France has 160,000 residents of Turkish nationality or dual nationality. Of the 90,000 Turkish AURA voters, 85% of voters gave their vote to the outgoing president.
“He’s been in office for twenty years, he’s the best, he knows what to do. In front of him, the other candidates do not have enough experience., explains Yacin (who did not wish to give his name), waiter at the Terminal kebab, Cours Charlemagne restaurant, in the Perrache station district. The 40-year-old sums up a dominant feeling in this district historically frequented by the Turkish community. Mr. Erdogan’s image of power fuels a form of patriotic pride, which overrides reservations about his authoritarian methods.
The other candidates are little known, although the parties have tried to campaign by distributing leaflets and posters in the neighborhood. “Abroad, the President of Turkey has a very important weight. He is a character with a strong character. We trust him. That’s why a lot of people vote for him here.”, says Yanis Chrrï, 27, employee at the Galata restaurant. In 2018, Mr. Erdogan had already obtained 86.7% of the votes in the AURA region, the highest rate of the Turkish vote abroad. In 2023, the score drops slightly, against a backdrop of mixed turnout, but the score in favor of the leader of the AKP, the Justice and Development Party, remains the highest in Europe. The results of the second round should confirm this trend.
“Political culture is lost”
“For the Turks, he has charisma, personality. It represents something. The more the media go after him, the more his popularity increases. A magazine compared him to Putin to criticize him. On the contrary, it shows that he is strong, he is the man for the job in the minds of many people., analyzes Kerim Demirtas, 35, manager of Kusadasi, an excellent address on Cours Suchet, behind Perrache station. The son of a construction worker, who came to France in the early 1980s, the 30-year-old says he saw mentalities change.
In the past, Turkish families used to go to a restaurant to get together, in a room where the portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was enthroned. “Political culture is being lost. The youngest have their life in France now, the elections, they don’t give a damn. It is a question of generations. Our parents have kept the link with the country. For them, it still means something”, says the restaurateur. His establishment has been modernized, without a portrait on the walls. And he didn’t go to vote, busy running his business.
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