Nfter the deadly attack on a Kurdish center in Paris, the Kurdish community is demanding clarification. Kurds want to hold a demonstration in the French capital on Saturday afternoon. The Paris police prefect wants to meet representatives of the Kurdish community in the morning.
On Friday, an attacker killed three people and wounded three others in a Kurdish community center and shops in central Paris. The alleged perpetrator was arrested. The public prosecutor is investigating the 69-year-old Frenchman for intentional killing and serious violence.
“He obviously wanted to attack foreigners,” said France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. However, it is unclear whether the attack was explicitly aimed at Kurds. The motive is unknown, the suspect was not registered as a right-wing extremist by the security authorities, but a right-wing background to the crime is being examined.
Kurds speak of Turkish threats
The Democratic Kurdish Council in France (CDK-F), the umbrella organization of 24 Kurdish associations, classified the attack as a “terrorist attack” that came after numerous Turkish threats. The dead and injured are Kurdish activists. Turkey has long fought Kurdish independence aspirations promoted by the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK and other Kurdish organizations.
In the afternoon, numerous Kurds gathered near the site of the attack. Shortly after Interior Minister Darmanin’s visit to the site, there were clashes with the security forces. Media reported that demonstrators had thrown at the police. They used tear gas. The France Info station wrote of an arrest and five injured police officers.
Even if it is not yet clear whether the attack was explicitly aimed at the Kurdish community, France now wants to protect Kurdish meeting places. Throughout the country, guards should be posted at gathering places of the Kurdish community. Darmanin also wanted to check whether there were other threats against Kurds in France. The interior minister also announced that he would also protect Turkish diplomatic missions in the country to prevent counterattacks.
Suspect attacked foreigner before
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the suspect had only recently been released from custody under judicial supervision. Last year he attacked a migrant camp and injured several people. According to media reports, he attacked with a saber. In 2016 he is said to have attacked a person with a knife. The broadcaster France Info reported, citing police circles, that the man was known for two attempted killings.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his outrage at the attack on Twitter: “The Kurds in France were the target of a vile attack in the middle of Paris.” French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne rated the attack on Twitter on Friday as a “disgusting act”. She expressed her support for the victims and their families. For victims and witnesses of the bloody attack, the city set up a psychological service at the tenth arrondissement town hall.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed his sympathy. “A terrible act that shook Paris and France today,” Scholz tweeted on Friday evening in German and French. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) also wrote on Twitter regarding the incident: “Hate must never win.”
The shots were fired in front of a Kurdish cultural center as well as a restaurant and a hairdressing salon in Paris’ tenth arrondissement.
“We saw an old white man who went to the Kurdish center and fired there,” said the chef of a nearby restaurant. The man then fled to a neighboring hairdressing salon. “We took refuge with the staff at the restaurant,” he said. “I saw two police officers go into a hairdressing salon where two people were lying on the ground, their legs were injured,” said a local resident. “There were seven or eight shots, there was panic,” said an eyewitness.
Almost ten years ago there was an assassination attempt on three Kurdish activists in the tenth arrondissement of Paris. Their bodies were then discovered in the Kurdistan Information Center.
