Clashes between protesters and police erupted in Paris on Friday after a shooting that left three people dead and three others wounded.
A gunman opened fire in the 10th district, near the Kurdish cultural center and a hair salon. The location is just a few streets from where three Kurds were killed a decade ago.
The Paris prosecutor said the suspect had recently been released from prison after attacking migrants living in tents and that investigators are considering a possible racist motive for the shooting.
Skirmishes erupted in the neighborhood within hours of the shooting, as members of the Kurdish community shouted slogans against the Turkish government and police fired tear gas to disperse the increasingly agitated crowd. Some garbage containers have been set on fire.
The tensions came as Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin spoke to reporters nearby. Darmanin said the attacker was clearly targeting foreigners, but police have no evidence at this time that he was aiming to harm Kurds. Darmanin is holding a special meeting on Friday night to assess threats against the Kurdish community in France.
Shocked members of Paris’ Kurdish community said police had recently warned them of threats to Kurdish targets and demanded justice after the shooting.
French President Emmanuel Macron said French Kurds had been “the target of a heinous attack in the heart of Paris”.
“Thoughts to the victims, to the people fighting to live, to their families and loved ones. Kudos to our law enforcement officers for their courage and composure,” the president wrote on Twitter.
One of the people injured in Friday’s attack remains in serious condition, officials said.
The shooting took place at a Kurdish cultural center and a nearby restaurant and hair salon on rue d’Enghien, located between Saint-Denis and Montmartre near the Gare de l’Est train station in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, local mayor Alexandra Cordebardshe said the “real motivation” for the shooting was still unclear.
As he spoke, a nearby crowd chanted: “Erdogan, terrorist” — referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — and “Turkish state, murderer.”
“An investigation has been opened for the crimes of murder, intentional homicide and aggravated violence” and “for now the investigations have been entrusted to the 2nd District of the Judicial Police (DPJ)”, the prosecutor’s office reported on Friday.
One suspect, a 69-year-old man who was injured, was arrested and taken into custody.
Paris police initially asked people to avoid the area and allow emergency services to arrive at the scene.
“It was total panic,” a shopkeeper in a nearby building told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“We saw an old white man come in and shoot at the Kurdish cultural center, then he went into the hair salon next door. We took refuge in the restaurant with other employees,” Romain, deputy manager of the Pouliche Paris restaurant down the street. , he told AFP by phone.
According to another witness, a resident of the neighborhood who was passing by, “there were panicked people shouting at the police: ‘It’s here, it’s here, go ahead’, pointing to a hair salon.”
“I saw police officers enter the lounge where I saw two people on the ground, with leg injuries, I saw blood”, he added, describing “people in a state of shock and panic”.
The Ahmet Kaya Center, named after a famous Turkish-Kurdish singer who lived in the city, is an association established in the French capital in 1901 that aims to “promote the progressive integration” of the Kurdish population who lives in the greater Paris area.