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Men using a gesture associated with the banned Turkish ultranationalist group ‘Grey Wolves’ have been blamed for provoking violence during protests this weekend in Paris, as the fall-out from the killing of three Kurds in a Paris cultural centre continues. The alleged provocation has added fuel to claims by the French Kurdish community that the triple murder was “political and terrorist in nature.”
A crowd of thousands marched from the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Centre, where the gunman opened fire on Friday, to the Kurdish Information Bureau at Gare Nord, where three female Kurdish activists were murdered 10 years ago.
With public anger over the killings remaining high, and Kurdish representatives accusing the French authorities of failing to protect their community from violence, the largely peaceful protests also saw clashes between Kurdish demonstrators and police.
Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nunez stated that 11 arrests resulted from the protests, while 31 individuals were also left lightly injured. Nunez further indicated that the demonstration began “normally”, before the situation intensified due to a “provocation”, which he described as a van attempting to get close to the demonstration.
Berivan Firat, spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDKF), clarified the incident in question. She said: “Provocateurs drove by in a vehicle with the Turkish flag making the sign of the Grey Wolves. Naturally, that provoked the young people.”
The Grey Wolves, who are closely linked to Turkey’s governing AKP-MHP coalition, were ordered to dissolve by the French Minister of the Interior in 2020. The ruling came after the organisation’s name was used to deface a memorial to the Armenian Genocide near Lyon, along with the initials of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Prior to the protests, representatives of the Kurdish community had met with Nunez, in a meeting where they criticized the approach of the French authorities regarding both the latest killings, and the unsolved 2013 murders, where the suspect died before he could face trial.
The suspect in question, Ömer Güney, was also described by relatives as a Turkish ultranationalist who defined himself as a “grey wolf”. A passport showing proof of repeat trips to Turkey was found in the car Güney was driving prior to the murder, while audio recordings have also been released alleged to prove Güney was in contact with Turkish intelligence service MIT.
Investigations into the latest triple killing continue, with the 69-year-old suspect having been returned from the care of psychiatric authorities to the police. A judge charged the man with murder, attempted murder because of race, ethnicity, nationality or religion as well as the unauthorised procurement and possession of a weapon, a judicial source told Agence-France Press. The fact that French authorities are currently treating the attack as ‘racist’ in nature, but not as a terror incident, has provoked further anger from the Kurdish community in France.
Speaking after the meeting with Police Prefect Nunez, CDKF spokesperson Agit Polat stated his community regretted failings “on the security level,” adding: “There is no doubt for us that these are political assassinations. The fact that our associations are being targeted is of a terrorist and political nature.”
Polat also called for the removal of confidentiality orders imposed over the 2013 killings, as a first step toward answering the Kurdish community’s grievances. The case was reopened three years after Guney’s 2016 death, but no progress has been made and there is still a partial confidentiality order on the case files.
Matt Broomfield is a freelance journalist, poet and activist. He writes for VICE, Medya News, the New Statesman and the New Arab; his prose has been published by The Mays, Anti-Heroin Chic and Plenitude; and his poetry by the National Poetry Society, the Independent, and Bare Fiction. His work was displayed across London by Poetry on the Underground, and he is a Foyle Young Poet of the Year.
