PARIS, July 19 (AFP) - A three-day visit to France by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan starting Monday re-opened the debate as to whether Turkey, a secular country with nearly 70 million Muslims, should be admitted into the European Union.
Most French newspapers dedicated significant coverage to the visit and examined the question, which has divided the political class.
President Jacques Chirac`s ruling conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has come out against the idea, even though Chirac himself favours Turkey eventually joining the EU but does not see it as ready yet. The opposition Socialists are backing Ankara`s bid.
Erdogan`s visit is seen as a key opportunity to persuade an EU heavyweight to back the accession bid before the European Commission released in October a report on Turkey`s democratisation progress.
That report is to form the basis of a decision EU leaders will make in December on whether to formally open membership talks with Turkey.
In a sign of the issue`s sensitivity, Chirac will not receive Erdogan until Tuesday.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin will play host by greeting Erdogan at his official offices after his arrival late Monday.
During his time in Paris, the Turkish leader will meet other political leaders, business chiefs and representatives of France`s Turkish community.
Liberation, a left-leaning daily, firmly planted the Turkish flag in the EU in an editorial, saying that, while Turkey was historically separate from Europe, its common adherence to secularity meant it ought to join European institutions.
"There is no convincing reason to think that Islam is not by its essence incompatible with democracy and secularity," it said.
The right-leaning Le Figaro, however, listed reasons to doubt Turkey`s readiness, among them cultural differences, "the reality of the genocide of the Armenians" in 1915 during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the continuing "military occupation in the north of Cyprus".
It tempered that position a little by printing an essay by a political science professor, Dominique Reynie, who noted that Turkey was a member of NATO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, had a separation of religion and state, and allowed women to vote.
"All of democratic Turkey has placed its hopes in an opening of negotiations," he wrote.
But a companion essay by a UMP deputy, Jacques Myard, warned of a "utopian" vision of a vast "federal Europe" encompassing Turkey which would fail because of "the clash of cultures and national realities".
Chirac has taken a cautious stance on Turkey, at the risk of being seen as blowing hot and cold.
In April, he said he wanted to Turkey eventually admitted, but -- just days before the bloc expanded to 25 states by taking in mainly former Communist central European countries -- he said conditions for entry were still some way off.
Then last month, US President George W. Bush raised European hackles by putting his weight behind Turkey`s bid in the hopes that it would become an example for other Muslim states to follow.
"I will remind the people of this good country that you ought to be given a date by the EU for your eventual acceptance into the EU," Bush said in Ankara on June 27 before attending a NATO summit in Istanbul.
Chirac, who has maintained prickly relations with Bush since the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, shot back that the US leader had gone too far.
"It would be like me telling the United States how to run its affairs with Mexico," he said.