Turkey and Russia promoting anti-France sentiment, says Emmanuel Macron
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Macron's latest statement comes amid increasing conflict with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin
President Emmanuel Macron on Friday accused Turkey and Russia of seeking to promote anti-French sentiment in Africa by funding people who whip up resentment against France through the media.
"We must not be naive on this subject: many of those who speak, who make videos, who are present in the French-speaking media are funded by Russia or Turkey," he told Jeune Afrique magazine, accusing Moscow and Ankara of seeking "to play on post-colonial resentment" in Africa.
Macron's latest statement comes amid increasing conflict with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had asked him for getting ''mental health check-ups'' due to his stance on the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.
France wants international supervision to implement a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict amid concerns in Paris that Russia and Turkey could strike a deal to cut out Western powers from future peace talks, the presidency said on Thursday.
Macron ruled out negotiating with jihadist groups in the Sahel region of Africa, where France has a thousands-strong force deployed, in an interview published Friday.
"We don't talk with terrorists. We fight," Macron told the Jeune Afrique magazine, as debates intensify in France and Africa over the long-term strategy of the Barkhane force.
In a wide-ranging interview, he also accused Guinea's President Alpha Conde of organising a referendum on constitutional changes "solely to be able to keep power", adding that the situation in the country was "serious" following post-election unrest.