FRANCE SLAMS ERDOGAN COMMENTS, RECALLS ENVOY TO TURKEY

France has condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over comments he made about Emmanuel Macron's mental health and treatment of Muslims, Gul Tuysuz, Martin Goillandeau and Zamie Rahim reported for CNN.

Erdogan suggested Saturday that the French President needed "some sort of mental treatment" over his attitude towards Muslims in France. "What is Macron's problem with Islam? What is his problem with Muslims?" Erdogan said, speaking at his Justice and Development Party meeting in Kayseri.

Erdogan added: "Macron needs some sort of mental treatment. What else is there to say about a head of state who doesn't believe in the freedom of religion and behaves this way against the millions of people of different faiths living in his own country?"

Macron has vowed to crack down on radical Islamism in France after the country was shaken by the beheading of Samuel Paty on October 16. Paty was a history professor who had taught a class on freedom of expression during which he used controversial caricatures of Islam's Prophet Mohammed from satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The killing of the teacher by a suspected terrorist in a Paris suburb reignited tensions over secularism, Islamism and Islamophobia in France.