France’s policy toward Turkey’s EU accession process will change regardless of the second round of the country’s presidential elections, European Union Minister Egemen Bağış said, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

“It is not in the interest of both the Socialists and the Union for a Popular Movement [UMP] to be against Turkey’s EU membership, but it contradicts France’s national interest to be against Turkey’s EU membership with such strong language,” Bağış told journalists at a press conference in Istanbul.

According to him, Sarkozy’s appearance at the Armenian Genocide commemoration event in Paris on April 24 is nothing but “political exploitation.”