CNN
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French police on Friday fired teargas amid clashes with agitated protesters outdoors a Kurdish group heart within the coronary heart of Paris, the place a gunman earlier killed three folks and injured 4 others in an assault with potential racist underpinnings.
All three folks killed inside and close to the Kurdish Cultural Center Ahmet-Kaya on Rue d’Enghien had been Kurds, the middle’s lawyer confirmed to CNN.
The suspected attacker, a 69-year-old French man with a protracted legal 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 stated.
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 stated earlier on Friday that investigators aren’t ruling out potential “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 stated.
French President Emmanuel Macron deplored the “heinous attack” the place “the Kurds of France have been the target,” in a Twitter put up on Thursday.
“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 stated.
Police in Paris and throughout France have been ordered to guard Kurdish websites and Turkish diplomatic establishments following the assault, in keeping with Darmanin.
He has additionally requested the French president and prime minister to permit Kurdish folks, who need to maintain demonstrations, to take action.
The taking pictures suspect was launched from detention lower than two weeks in the past as a courtroom remains to be investigating his earlier involvement in violence with a “racist nature,” the Paris prosecutor’s workplace stated in a press release.
He was convicted twice, in 2017 and 2022, for committing gun violence. An investigation was additionally launched by a Paris courtroom in 2021 for violence “with a racist nature,” in keeping with the assertion.
The final incident led to his getting put underneath pre-trial detention whereas the courtroom conducts an investigation.
“At this stage, there is no evidence that this man is affiliated with any extremist ideological movement,” the assertion stated.
Following the incident, crowds gathered close to the middle, the place folks of Kurdish descent had been heard chanting the Kurdish phrase “Şehid Namirin,” which suggests: Those who’re misplaced are by no means actually misplaced however with us, in keeping with CNN’s group on the bottom.
Some folks had been additionally heard chanting “Murderer Erdogan,” in a reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong stance towards Kurdish nationalism, and his insurance policies in direction of Kurdish far-left militant and political teams based mostly in Turkey and Iraq.
In the aftermath of the assault, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his “deepest sympathies” to Kurdish folks in France in a put up on Twitter. “My thoughts are with the members of the Kurdish community and people of France on this sad day,” Blinken added.
In 2013, three Kurdish political activists had been killed in central Paris, together with the founding member of the Kurdish Workers’ Party. All three ladies had been shot within the head within the obvious assassination.