When US President Donald Trump lined up regional and European leaders behind him for a press conference on the Gaza peace deal in Cairo in October, two leaders were conspicuously missing.
Rather than become a trinket in a display window behind Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that they sit at a table in the audience. Erdogan, 72, liked the idea.
The image was telling: two leaders who had a combative relationship for years were now sitting together in Trump's shadow, a sort of "adults in the room" moment.
People familiar with the matter now tell Middle East Eye that, after a long period of discontent marked by disagreements over Syria, Armenia and the Eastern Mediterranean, France may be close to opening a new chapter with Turkey.
"France is envisaging the future of European security with Turkey as one of its pillars," said one western source familiar with the matter.
