Act Daily News
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French police on Friday fired teargas amid clashes with agitated protesters exterior a Kurdish group middle within the coronary heart of Paris, the place a gunman earlier killed three folks and injured 4 others in an assault with doable racist underpinnings.
All three folks killed inside and close to the Kurdish Cultural Center Ahmet-Kaya on Rue d’Enghien have been Kurds, the middle’s lawyer confirmed to Act Daily News.
The suspected attacker, a 69-year-old French man with a protracted felony report, has been arrested.
He was not a part of any far-right teams monitored by the police, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin informed journalists on the scene. “He (the suspect) clearly wanted to take it out on foreigners,” Darmanin mentioned.
“For now, no elements can allow us to know if the attack is specifically targeting Kurdish people,” he added.
Clashes with dozens of protesters, principally from the Kurdish diaspora, broke out throughout Darmanin’s go to to the positioning of the assault on Friday.
While the taking pictures has not been designated a terrorist assault, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau mentioned earlier on Friday that investigators usually are not ruling out doable “racist motivations” behind the taking pictures.
“When it comes to racist motivations, of course these elements are part of the investigation that was just launched,” Beccuau mentioned.
French President Emmanuel Macron deplored the “heinous attack” the place “the Kurds of France have been the target,” in a Twitter publish on Thursday.
“The Kurds of France have been the target of a heinous attack in the heart of Paris. My thoughts to the victims, to the people who are fighting to live, to their families and loved ones. My gratitude to our law enforcement forces for their courage and calmness,” Macron mentioned.
Police in Paris and throughout France have been ordered to guard Kurdish websites and Turkish diplomatic establishments following the assault, in response to Darmanin.
He has additionally requested the French president and prime minister to permit Kurdish individuals who wish to maintain demonstrations to take action.
Paris’ anti-terror prosecutor is “evaluating” the information of Friday’s taking pictures within the tenth arrondissement, however the investigation remains to be being led by the town’s judicial authorities, the anti-terror prosecutor’s workplace informed Act Daily News Friday.
“We are evaluating the facts to know if the event should be qualified as an act of terrorism,” the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
The taking pictures suspect was launched from detention lower than two weeks in the past as a court docket remains to be investigating his earlier involvement in violence with a “racist nature,” the Paris prosecutor’s workplace mentioned in an announcement.
He was convicted twice, in 2017 and 2022, for committing gun violence. An investigation was additionally launched by a Paris court docket in 2021 for violence “with a racist nature,” in response to the assertion.
The final incident led to his getting put underneath pre-trial detention whereas the court docket conducts an investigation.
“At this stage, there is no evidence that this man is affiliated with any extremist ideological movement,” the assertion mentioned.
Following the incident, crowds gathered close to the middle, the place folks of Kurdish descent have been heard chanting the Kurdish phrase “Şehid Namirin,” which suggests: Those who’re misplaced are by no means actually misplaced however with us, in response to Act Daily News’s staff on the bottom.
Some folks have been additionally heard chanting “Murderer Erdogan,” in a reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong stance in opposition to Kurdish nationalism, and his insurance policies in direction of Kurdish far-left militant and political teams primarily based in Turkey and Iraq.