Paris Shooting and Riots; December 23rd 2022
A 69-year-old gunman opened fire at a Kurdish cultural centre and a hairdressing salon in Paris on Friday 23rd December 2022, killing three people and injuring three others in a racially motivated attack.
The shots shortly before midday (1100 GMT) caused panic in rue d'Enghien in the trendy 10th district of the capital, a bustling area of shops and restaurants that is home to a large Kurdish population. The gunman, described by police as white, a French national and previously charged with racist violence, initially targeted the Kurdish cultural centre before entering a hairdressing salon where he was arrested. Of the three wounded people, one is in intensive care and two are being treated for serious injuries.
Within hours of the attack, Kurdish protesters clashed with police, who used teargas in an attempt to disperse them as they tried to break through a police cordon deployed to protect Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin who had arrived at the scene. Demonstrators threw objects at police while voicing fury over an attack they saw as deliberate and which French security services had done too little to prevent. Several cars parked in the area as well as police vehicles had their windows smashed as protesters threw bricks.
The gunman, named as William M. in the French media, had already been linked to two previous attempted murders in 2016 and 2021. The retired train driver was initially convicted over the first case in the multicultural Seine-Saint-Denis suburb of Paris, but freed on appeal, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told reporters without giving further details. In the second case, he was charged with racist violence after allegedly attacking migrants in tents in the Bercy area of the city in December 2021, Beccuau added.
The Kurdish Democratic Council of France (CDK-F), which uses the cultural centre as its headquarters, said in a statement it considered the shooting to be a "terror attack". Some members of the Kurdish centre could be seen weeping and hugging each other for comfort after the attack.
