French–Turkish relations (; ) cover a long period from the 16th century to the present, starting with the alliance established between Francis I and Suleiman the Magnificent. Relations remained essentially friendly during a period of nearly three centuries, with the resumption of intense contacts from the reign of Louis XIV. Relations became more complex with the French campaign in Egypt and Syria by Napoleon I in 1798, and the dawn of the modern era.
History
Battle of Nicopolis
In 1396, Jean Le Maingre, the Marshal of France, took part in the joint French–Hungarian crusade against the Ottoman Turks, which suffered a heavy defeat on September 28 at the Battle of Nicopolis. He was taken hostage by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, but, unlike many of his companions, escaped execution and was eventually ransomed. From France, it was said about 5,000 knights and squires joined, and were accompanied by 6,000 archers and foot soldiers drawn from the best volunteer and mercenary companies; totalling some 11,000 men. Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, the Constable of France, was captured in the battle, and subsequently died in captivity.
Franco-Ottoman alliance
The Franco-Ottoman alliance, also Franco-Turkish alliance, was an alliance established in 1536 between the king of France Francis I and the Turkish sultan of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman the Magnificent. The objective for Francis I was to find an ally against the Habsburgs (see French–Habsburg rivalry and Ottoman–Habsburg wars). King Francis was imprisoned in Madrid when the first efforts at establishing an alliance were made. A first French mission to Suleiman seems to have been sent right after the Battle of Pavia by the mother of Francis I Louise de Savoie, but the mission was lost on its way in Bosnia.
In December 1525 a second mission was sent, led by John Frangipani, which managed to reach Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, with secret letters asking for the deliverance of king Francis I and an attack on the Habsburg. Frangipani returned with an answer from Suleiman, on 6 February 1526:. Top-level strategic relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of France started during the reigns of Süleyman the Magnificent and the Valois king Francis I in the first quarter of the 16th century, at a time when the French king was in critical need of alliance and assistance from the Ottoman Sultan. The contacts were further enhanced, especially in a commercial viewpoint, with the capitulations granted by the sultan in 1535 and starting with Jean de la Forest in that year, France had an ambassadorial representative in Turkey ever since. These privileged trading conditions were to mark the relations, both in commercial terms and beyond, till their abolition with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, and to gradually increasing disadvantage and decreasing leverage for the Ottomans.
Relations during the Ottoman decline
In 1663, the Ottomans launched a disastrous invasion of the Habsburg Monarchy, ending at the Battle of St. Gotthard. The battle was won by the Christians, chiefly through the attack of 6,000 French troops led by La Feuillade and Coligny.
In 1669, during the siege of Candia, the French prince Francois de Beaufort led the French troops defending the Venetian-ruled Candia (modern Heraklion, Crete) against the Ottoman Turks.
The Barbary slave trade and Ottoman corsairs originating from Ottoman Algeria were a major problem throughout the centuries, leading to regular punitive expeditions by France (1661, 1665, 1682, 1683, 1688). French admiral Abraham Duquesne fought the Barbary corsairs in 1681 and bombarded Algiers between 1682 and 1683, to help Christian captives.
The intensity of the contacts is demonstrated by the opening of up to forty French consulates, often focused on trade relations, in Ottoman lands in the 18th century. The first Turkish representative invested with an extended period mission to the Parisian court was Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi, in the beginning of the 18th century, at a time when the Ottoman Empire sought to grasp the reasons for its loss of prominence as compared to the European powers.