Violence erupted between demonstrators and police on the sidelines of a rally in Paris on Saturday to pay tribute to three Kurds killed by a gunman in the capital.
By AFP
DHe clashed with police on the sidelines of a demonstration that drew thousands of people in Paris on Saturday to pay tribute to three Kurds killed and three others wounded near a Kurdish cultural center in the capital.
At 1 p.m., an hour after the rally began at the Place de la République, AFP journalists noted that clashes broke out a hundred meters away on the Boulevard du Temple.
At least four cars were overturned, at least one was set on fire, and garbage cans were set on fire.
A few dozen demonstrators hurled projectiles at security forces, who responded with tear gas. “Long live the resistance of the Kurdish people,” many of them chanted.
The march, originally several thousand strong, was split in two by these tensions, and only a few hundred demonstrators managed to reach the march’s arrival point at the Place de la Bastille after 2pm.
At the rally, many demonstrators waved PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) flags or waved effigies of three Kurdish activists killed in Paris in January 2013.
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