TURKISH president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has faced protests over press freedom and the deteriorating state of human rights in his country as he arrived in Paris for talks with French leader Emmanuel Macron.
The trip is Erdogan’s first to France since his government’s crackdown on suspected opponents following a failed coup in July 2016. About 50,000 people have been arrested and 110,000 others were removed from public sector jobs in Turkey.
Roughly 30 activists from watchdog group Reporters Without Borders held images of jailed journalists outside the Turkish Embassy. A dozen demonstrators, mainly ethnic Kurds, later tried to reach the presidential Elysee palace, but police pushed them back on to a side street.
The French Communist Party and several left-wing parties have criticised Erdogan’s visit, which came the day before the fifth anniversary of the slayings in Paris of three Kurdish women activists.
“The French judicial system had pointed out Turkish secret services’ involvement in this crime,” said a Communist Party statement.
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