Turkey attracts young Muslim people fleeing France due to rising anti-Islam sentiments in the country, the French media said Wednesday.
According to the article "Young French Muslims who chose expatriation with Erdoğan" published by Le Journal du Dimanche, Turkey has been attracting hundreds of Muslims living in France for long years.
It was stated that many young French Muslims chose President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's country to migrate and settled in Turkey especially in the last five years. According to the article, they are generally religious, globalized and productive entrepreneurial profiles, and that they ascribe to the codes of Western modernity and capitalism.
Emphasizing that Turkey is not a randomly chosen country for these Western Muslims, the article pointed out that many young people of North African origin settled in the Gulf countries, but that "economically developed, Western and Muslim Turkey is increasingly a popular migration destination for qualified people in this category."
The article covers the story of 32-year-old Thibault, once a baker in Isere, France, who settled in Istanbul with his wife and two children a year and a half ago. Thibault decided to leave the country after discussions about Islam in France. He first went to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Norway before settling in Turkey. The couple first considered Egypt and Morocco but preferred Turkey, which they felt closely fit their lifestyle.
YouTube phenomenon Fosil Mahani, who settled in Antalya in 2019, said of Turkey: "There is a dual culture here, European and Middle Eastern. This appeals to me." It was also stated that David Bizet, who is from the city of Dijon in eastern France and later converted to Islam, has been living in Turkey since 2019.
The article reported that the Facebook group "Migration to Turkey," founded by Bizet in October 2020, has 2,000 members. Two weeks ago he shared a post saying: "There isn't even a week that I don't receive messages from the French who have settled in Turkey or want to settle down."
The New York Times also recently published a report on the subject saying that many Muslims subjected to discriminatory and Islamophobic treatment in France left the country silently because they did not feel safe.
The article entitled "The Quiet Flight of Muslims From France," emphasized that while the migration debate was central in the upcoming presidential election campaigns in the country, the number of Muslims leaving France was increasing day by day, indicating a deep crisis.
Turkish officials have frequently stated that the rising anti-Islam, xenophobic and anti-Turkish sentiments and rhetoric in Europe threaten Turks living in France the most.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said last year that Western countries insist on not taking measures against growing anti-Islam sentiment and called on Turkish institutions to take action on issues related to Muslims and Turks in these countries. Some European countries, particularly France, have embraced a hostile stance against Muslims in recent years.
Last year, a special commission in the French National Assembly approved the "charter of republican values” of Islam that was introduced last year by President Emmanuel Macron as part of the fight against "separatism," outraging the Muslim community. The legislation has been criticized for targeting France's Muslim community – the largest in Europe, with 3.35 million members – and imposing restrictions on many aspects of their lives. The law allows officials to intervene in mosques and associations responsible for their administration as well as control the finances of Muslim-affiliated associations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
