Paris Olympics 2024: Erdogan says he will talk to Pope over 'immorality' at opening ceremony

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will contact Pope Francis to discuss what he described as "immorality" on display at the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympic Games.

The event provoked backlash from Christian and Muslim religious groups after accusations that one scene was a mockery of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting The Last Supper, which depicts one of the final episodes of Jesus's life before his crucifixion.

On Sunday, the organising committee of the games said the scene depicted during the opening ceremony on Friday evening had nothing to do with the figure of Jesus, who is revered in Christianity and Islam.

The scene - which was performed by colourfully dressed people, including drag queens - was a depiction of Greek gods enjoying a party and not of Jesus Christ and his followers, the organisers said.

Nevertheless, numerous religious figures have leapt to condemn the ceremony, branding it blasphemous.

Speaking at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan said he would be contacting the leader of the Catholic Church to "share with him the immorality committed against the Christian world and against all Christians".

"The Olympic Games have been used as a tool of perversion that corrupts human nature," he said.

He also railed against what he saw as LGBTQ imagery in the ceremony.

Despite the high secrecy surrounding the contents of the ceremony before its unveiling, Erdogan said that his granddaughter had shown him photos on Instagram of LGBTQ content at the event, so he turned down an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron.

"Macron invited me. I said I could come. But my 13-year-old granddaughter told me not to go... that they would organise an LGBT demonstration there," said Erdogan.

He said that "more leaders should have denounced this blatant attack on the sacred".

So far Pope Francis has yet to make any comments on the Olympic opening ceremony and has only stressed that he hopes the Olympic Truce - which mandates peace between competing nations during the event - would be maintained.

Erdogan has regularly denounced LGBTQ people as a threat to the traditional family and repeatedly accuses Turkish opposition parties of being pro-LGBTQ.

Damla Umut Uzun, a campaigner with the Turkish LGBTQ rights organisation, Kaos GL, told Middle East Eye last year that the government regularly "targeted LGBTQ people with hate speech, saying we are against traditional family values, we are perverts, we don't exist in Turkey".

"The government uses hate speech to polarise society, and they targeted LGBTQ people a lot in [the] last decade. Of course, the hate speech, lack of protective measures and lack of awareness from public officials encourages potential perpetrators [of violence]," they said.