Turkey hopes to improve its relations with France when Francois Hollande leads the new French government, visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said here on Monday.

Speaking to reporters after talks with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, Erdogan voiced regret over poor Turkey-France relations during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, and expressed hope to build more constructive relations between the two countries.

On Turkey-EU relations, Erdogan reiterated Turkey's desire to join the EU, and expressed hope to make headway in its bid for EU membership as soon as possible.

Erdogan made the remarks after Hollande won presidential run-off on Sunday.

Turkey's bid for EU membership has been at a bottleneck due to strong objections from Germany and France.

Turkey and France have been in tense relations after the French Senate adopted in January a bill which made it illegal to deny as "genocide" the killing of over 1 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

The Turkish government froze its political and military ties with France after the bill had been passed by France's lower house of the parliament last December.