Protesters clashed with police, and cars were overturned and set on fire as the second day of riots in Paris following a mass shooting at a Kurdish community center continued.
On Christmas Eve, thousands of Kurdish protesters and left-wing activists flocked to the streets of Paris in reaction to a gunshot that left three dead and three more injured at a Kurdish community center the morning before.
Alexandra Cordebard, the socialist mayor of Paris’s 10th arrondissement, where the shooting took place, was among the many left-leaning public politicians present at the rally. Sylvain Maillard, a member of the National Assembly from President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, was also present at the rally.
Protesters were observed hurling objects at police, burning cars, and even forcing a police van to flee as violence spread rapidly throughout the march. The police were also spotted using tear gas in response to the rioting.
Cries of “long live the resistance of the Kurdish people!” were reportedly heard by Le Parisien. Some protesters waved the banner of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a Marxist terrorist organization labeled as such by the United States.
Police in Paris have reportedly made 11 arrests, and 31 policemen and one protester have been hurt. The prefect of police in Paris, Laurent Nunez, said that 31 cops had been injured.
Kurdish Democratic Council of France spokesperson Berivan Firat said, “There were provocateurs who climbed onboard a vehicle with the Turkish flag by making the sign of the Grey Wolves, so naturally, it inflamed young people.”
William M., a 69-year-old French national, has been recognized as the sole suspect in the shooting. He has a history of violent behavior, including an attack on a migrant camp with a sword in December last year that injured two men.
As of this reporting, the Paris prosecutor has not ruled out racism as a possible reason for Friday’s deadly shooting.
Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin denied that the government had any knowledge of the man’s ties to extremist groups.
However, on December 12th, the suspect was freed from a mental health center, where one of the terms of release was a ban on the possession of firearms.