Kurdish community accuses the French state of not having protected it: Le Monde

After a gunman's attack in Paris that left three Kurds dead, the idea that the attack was carried out with "racist" motives does not convince the Kurdish community, Le Monde said on Monday.

In the article titled "How Paris attack upsets fragile balance between French state and Kurdish community," Le Monde's Christophe Ayad and Allan Kaval cited Agit Polat, spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Center of France (CDKF), saying:

"Someone suddenly woke up and said he hated Kurds and came to the Kurdish cultural center with a gun? Then he chases one of his victims into a Kurdish restaurant. Then he runs 150 meters down a street filled with businesses of all ethnic origins to enter a Kurdish hairdresser's? How can you think this is a simple racist crime?"

Ayad and Kaval say:

"The idea of an operation by the Turkish state which, in parallel to the battlefields of the Middle East, has been waging a shadow war against the Kurdish movement in Europe for decades, offers a much more credible explanation in the eyes of many of the Kurds in France. This is the only scenario that makes sense, especially among those close to the national movement. After all, it is the Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK) unofficial headquarters in Paris that was targeted on Friday, rather than a simple community organization."

They note that Ahmet Kaya cultural center came under attack when it was "preparing the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the triple assassination on January 9, 2013, of the leaders of the Kurdish movement in another of the organization's offices on rue Lafayette."

"Ten years after the triple rue Lafayette murder, the triple murder on rue d'Enghien has come at a time when Turkey is threatening a new attack on the Kurdish regions of Syria, and its forces are continuing their war against the PKK in Iraq after an unclaimed attack in November in Istanbul, attributed by Ankara to the Kurdish movement," they add.

As for the relationship between Paris and the Kurdish activists, they say:

"On the one hand, it is determined by the need to control or even repress the action of the Kurdish movement on French territory, within the framework of security cooperation with Ankara. On the other hand, the Kurdish movement accuses France of hiding the truth about Turkish involvement in the triple murder in 2013. Accusations that have doubled in intensity since Friday. This relationship has also been structured since 2014 by the military alliance with Kurdish forces linked to the PKK and engaged in Syria against the Islamic State Group."