Clashes erupted in Paris this Saturday, December 24 during the demonstration in support of the Kurdish community.
Clashes broke out between demonstrators and the police on the sidelines of the demonstration which brought together several thousand people in Paris on Saturday to pay tribute to the three Kurds killed and the three other people injured the day before near a Kurdish cultural center in the capital city.
Around 1:00 p.m., an hour after the start of the rally in Place de la République, clashes began on Boulevard du Temple, a hundred meters away, AFP journalists noted. At least four cars were overturned, including at least one set on fire, and garbage cans burned.
Strong tensions in the center of Paris, the Kurdish demonstration degenerates. Many projectiles in the direction of the forces of order, tear gas. pic.twitter.com/U7rnxkgIAX
— Remy Buisine (@RemyBuisine) December 24, 2022
“Long live the resistance of the Kurdish people”
A few dozen demonstrators threw projectiles at the security forces who responded with tear gas. “Long live the resistance of the Kurdish people”, shouted several of them. The procession, originally several thousand people strong, split in two due to these tensions and only a few hundred demonstrators managed to reach Place de la Bastille shortly after 2 p.m., the arrival point of the procession. .
In the crowd, many demonstrators waved flags of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) or the effigy of three Kurdish activists murdered in January 2013 in Paris. “What we feel is pain and incomprehension because it’s not the first time it’s happened,” Esra, a 23-year-old student who didn’t know, told AFP. not wished given his surname, eyes reddened with tears. A minute of silence was observed, in music, in memory of the victims and “all the Kurds who died for freedom”.
“Injustice”
Several demonstrators denounced to AFP an “injustice” and a “terrorist” and “political” act. The suspect, of French nationality and aged 69, who had already committed violence with a weapon in the past, indicated during his arrest that he acted because he was “racist”. A little earlier in the morning, representatives of the Kurdish community had been received by the Paris police chief, Laurent Nunez.
“There is no doubt for us that these are political assassinations. The fact that our associations are targeted is of a terrorist and political nature”, affirmed after the meeting Agit Polat, spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Council. in France (CDKF), which regretted a “lack of security”.
Several hundred people also gathered on Saturday afternoon in the center of Marseilles at the call of the association for the defense of the rights of the Kurds Solidarity and Freedom. The suspect, whose police custody was extended on Saturday, is suspected of having opened fire on Friday rue d’Enghien in Paris, in the 10th arrondissement, killing three Kurds and injuring three other people near a Kurdish cultural center . In the minutes following the attack, the Kurds of France spoke of a “terrorist” act and blamed Turkey.