The Democratic Kurdish Council in France (Conseil Démocratique Kurde en France, or CDK-F) has condemned in the strongest terms the looting, vandalism and severe violence witnessed over October 17-18 in Paris, Marseille and other urban locations.
CDK-F, which in some ways can be described as a wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in France, issued its statement of condemnation on its X account (@Le_CDKF). The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by the EU.
“The right to protest, to express anger or to present demands is a fundamental freedom in a democracy,” the umbrella group, which represents dozens of Kurdish associations across France, also said.
“However”
“However, no claim, whatever it may be, can justify violence, attacks on individuals, businesses, public or private property or the scenes of looting we have witnessed,” CDK-F added.
The CDK-F called for “calm, responsibility and respect for democratic principles.”
The riots across the weekend saw smashed storefronts, looted retail premises and disrupted commercial districts in France's largest metropolitan areas. For the French government, the protests present a unresolved dilemma.
Coalition with Socialist Party
On October 12, the CDK-F inaugurated the House of Kurdistan of France (la Maison du Kurdistan de France/MKF) at Paris City Hall (Hôtel de Ville) “in the heart of Paris”.
About 300 people, including politicians, academics and representatives of institutions, community associations and cultural spheres, were present at the event co-organised by the MKF and the City of Paris.
Among them were Mayor of Paris Emmanuel Gregoire and French ex-president Francois Hollande. They are members of the Socialist Party. Both politicians (@egregoire and @fhollande) and their party (@partisocialiste) accused protesters of “violence, looting and vandalism”.
For the March local elections this year, the CDK-F formed a coalition with the Socialist Party. For the first time, more than 30 Kurds were elected to municipal councils across France.
The remarkable thing about the Socialist Party of France, launched in 1969 as a social democratic party, is that it is not socialist. The PKK, meanwhile, left socialist ideology behind it following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Who was the perpetrator?
The mayor opened the MKF inauguration ceremony with a speech. He evoked “the shared memory of the Kurds and Paris, deeply marked by the attacks of 2013 and 2022.”
Gregoire paid tribute to the victims, namely Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan, Leyla Soylemez, Evin Goyi, Mir Perwer and Abdurrahman Kizil. To “all those calling for truth and justice,” the mayor reaffirmed the solidarity of the City of Paris while acknowledging that the French state could do more to reveal the truth of the events.
The 2013 reference points to the assassination of three women (Cansiz, Dogan and Soylemez) during the night of January 9-10 at the Centre d'Information sur le Kurdistan located on 147 Rue La Fayette. The CDK-F accused Turkey’s intelligence service (MIT) of being behind the incident.
Coalition with Turkish government
Lately, the CDK-F has preferred to not refer to the alleged perpetrator. On August 11, the CDK-F welcomed the Turkish parliament's adoption of a law establishing a first legal framework for the establishment of peace and a democratic society in Turkey.
“Abdullah Ocalan [the PKK’s leader, who is imprisoned in Turkey] must have the legal, material and political conditions allowing him to communicate freely and to continue his role as coordinator in the implementation and success of the process,” the CDK-F said.
Back in 2023, the CDK-F was wont to describe Turkey’s government as “the Islamo-fascist regime of Erdogan”.
Turned vehicles upside down, wounded police officers
The mayor of Paris’s reference to 2022 points to the murder of the other three individuals on December 23 by a racist gunman on Rue d'Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, near Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Centre.
The day after the killings, Kurds in Paris took to the streets. They wounded dozens of police officers in street protests, set vehicles on fire and flipped them over.
Female fighters, symbol of feminism
Ex-president Hollande addressed the crowd at the inauguration ceremony. Looking back at the events that marked his presidency, he praised the decisive role of Syrian Kurdish fighters against the Islamic State.
He also recalled that he, as the president of France, had welcomed Kurdish female fighters at the Elysee Palace.
420,000 Kurds in France
Hollande also underlined the need to maintain French solidarity with the Kurdish people without relating it to geopolitical shifts or short-term political agreements. The former head of state also underscored the importance of the Kurdish community in France, numbering some 420,000 people.
The CDK-F brings together 27 associations located in the main cities of France and has 62,000 members, according to its official website.
No to drugs and criminal networks
On October 6, the CDK-F launched a “France-wide campaign against drugs and criminal networks”. The comprehensive national awareness-raising and prevention campaign aims to protect the youth from addiction, drug trafficking, violence and the control mechanisms of criminal networks.
The phenomena related to narcotics, addiction, violence and organised crime are issues that concern the whole of French society, the association also said.