Police in Paris investigate at the scene of Friday’s shooting that left three people dead and three others injured. A 69-year-old suspect was injured and arrested.
Lewis Joly/AP
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Police in Paris investigate at the scene of Friday’s shooting that left three people dead and three others injured. A 69-year-old suspect was injured and arrested.
Lewis Joly/AP
PARIS — A shooting at a Kurdish cultural center in a busy Paris neighborhood on Friday left three people dead and three others injured, authorities said. A 69-year-old suspect was injured and arrested.
The Paris prosecutor said the suspect was recently released from prison after attacking migrants living in tents and that investigators were looking into a possible racist motive for the shooting.
Fighting broke out in the neighborhood hours after the shooting, as members of the Kurdish community chanted slogans against the Turkish government, and police fired tear gas to disperse the growing crowd. agitation. Some trash cans were burned.
Tensions arose as Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin was speaking to reporters nearby. Darmanin said the attacker was clearly targeting foreigners, but police have no evidence at this stage that he intended to hurt the Kurds. Darmanin is holding a special meeting on Friday night to assess threats against the Kurdish community in France.
Shocked members of the Kurdish community in Paris said they had recently been alerted by police to threats to Kurdish targets and demanded justice in the wake of the shooting.
Nearby residents and merchants were alarmed by the attack, which occurred as Paris was buzzing with festive activities ahead of the Christmas holiday weekend.
The shooting happened at midday at a Kurdish cultural center and a restaurant and hair salon nearby, according to the mayor of district 10, Alexandra Cordebard.
As she spoke, a crowd nearby chanted, “Erdogan, terrorist” – a reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – and “Turkish state, assassin.”
A construction worker who was working nearby described seeing the attacker first go to the cultural center, then to the restaurant and then to the hair salon. The construction worker told the AP news agency he saw the attacker injuring three people, then two passers-by intervened and stopped the attacker.
The worker, who spoke on condition of not being named out of concern for his security, described the attacker as silent and calm as he wielded a small-caliber pistol.
Firefighters work at the scene of a shooting in Paris on Friday.
Lewis Joly/AP
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Firefighters work at the scene of a shooting in Paris on Friday.
Lewis Joly/AP
Police have cordoned off the area in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital, on a busy street lined with shops and restaurants near the Gare de l’Est train station.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said three people who were hit by bullets in the shooting had died, one was in critical condition and two others were taken to hospital with minor injuries. She said the attacker also suffered facial injuries.
She said counterterrorism prosecutors are in contact with investigators, but have not indicated any indication of a terrorist motive.
The prosecutor said the suspect had at least two previous clashes with police: an attack on migrants in a tent in east Paris in 2021 and a recent conviction in another suburban case. Paris. She did not elaborate on either case.
Darmanin said the attacker attended a shooting practice in a sports club and had a number of registered weapons. He added that the attacker was French and was not on any radicalism watchlist, or known to be associated with any far-right or other political movements.
Yann Manzi of the aid group Utopia 54 said that in the attack on migrants, the suspect used a sword and injured several people in a makeshift camp.
He lamented the suspect’s recent release, as well as the Kurds who gathered at the scene of Friday’s shooting.
“We don’t feel protected in Paris at all,” activist Murat Roni told the AP. “We don’t feel protected by the French justice system.” “Obviously the Kurds were the target.”
He described the cultural center as “like the Kurdish embassy in Paris”, where cultural events, political discussions, immigration assistance, “a home where all The Kurds gather.”
In 2013, three Kurdish female activists, including Sakine Cansiz – founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK – was found shot dead at a Kurdish center in Paris. A Turkish citizen is accused of killing them, although Turkish intelligence agencies are also suspicious.
The Turkish military has been fighting against Kurdish fighters linked to the banned PKK, in southeastern Turkey as well as in northern Iraq. The Turkish military has also recently launched a series of air and artillery attacks against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Syria. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the United States, and has led an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
France suffered a series of deadly attacks by Islamist extremists in 2015-2016 and remains on alert for terrorism-related violence.
