The commercial area is adorned with hundreds of flags of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK.
At the corner of a wholesale meat store and a technical control center, there is something unusual in the decor, unsuited to a funeral, in the middle of the "
ZA
" des Tissonvilliers in Villiers-le-Bel ( Val-d'Oise) this Tuesday.
But worthy, the Kurds are, gathered for a last tribute to Abdurrahman Kizil, Mir Perwer, a Kurdish political refugee singer, and Emine Kara, head of the Kurdish Women's Movement in France, shot dead on December 23 in the 10th arrondissement of the capital.
Wrapped in the flags of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Rojava, Kurdish territory of Syria, the coffins of the three deceased, two men and a woman, are welcomed around noon by a guard of honor, tears and cries of "
martyrs are eternal!"
".
The funeral is attended by a dense crowd - around 10,000 people over the entire day, according to a police source.
There are old Kurds with mustaches, long woolen coats and sometimes canes.
There are young people with beards, in black down jackets, black jeans, black sneakers.
Often black eyes, but who sometimes cry, without false modesty, after a cry.
And then the women.
Some veiled, a good majority not.
Their style is more varied, from the most traditional to the most fashionable.
Coming from the four corners of France and Europe on board specially chartered buses, the assembly generally had to content itself with following the ceremony on giant screens installed in the parking lot.
Inside the warehouse-like building, a party room decorated with false cornices and white tiles, and yellow, green and red neon lights for the occasion.
It welcomes the press, relatives of the victims and the desk, guarded by young activists.
The speeches follow one another, between French and Kurdish.
An assistant to the mayor of Villiers-le-Bel, then the mayor of the neighboring town of Sarcelles, Patrick Haddad (PS), come to deliver a multicultural speech in front of these nationalists, with great reinforcement of "
values of openness
", and congratulations Kurds engaged "
against racism
".
The Turkish track
Struggling to sustain their country, the Kurds do not believe for a moment in a simple xenophobic motive.
For the Kurdish Democratic Council in France in its press release, "
there is no doubt that Turkey and its services are involved in this terrorist attack
".
Nobody is doing any other analysis, this Tuesday in the crowd.
For Serwer*, “
French justice is ashamed to recognize that there is a foreign power doing this on its soil
”.
Was the killer instrumentalized?
“
He went to jail.
It was there that they manipulated him
, ”says the young man.
"
They say [the alleged killer] didn't like foreigners, but why Kurds, why not Arabs?
We are a quiet people.
We come to France and we get killed!
“, is surprised with AFP Mizgine, 24, who came to the funeral with her baby.
Read alsoThe Kurds, people without a state and forgotten by History
"
The anger of the people gathered today (...) has once again proven to us to what extent the Kurdish community thinks that these assassinations are political assassinations, terrorist assassinations orchestrated by Turkey
", hammers in front of the press Agit Polak, carries -speaker of the Kurdish Democratic Council of France, rejecting the version of the Paris prosecutor's office.
The community's suspicions are all the more acute since ten years ago, almost to the day, three Kurdish activists were murdered in the same 10th arrondissement of Paris.
A Turkish national suspected of acting on behalf of Ankara's intelligence services died of cancer in 2016 in custody ahead of trial.
The alleged perpetrator of the three murders of December 23, William Malet, expressed his "
hatred of foreigners (...) pathological
" and said he wanted to "
murder migrants
", according to the Paris prosecutor's office.
Disarmed and arrested in the process, he has since been indicted in particular for murder and attempted murder because of race, ethnicity, nation or religion.
Despite the horror, the retired train driver is, for the militants and Kurds present, only the gun holder of a cause that is beyond him.
It is not mentioned in the speeches of Kurdish officials.
Then comes the procession in front of the coffins of these thousands of demonstrators, who lay a rose under the portrait of Abdullah Öcalan, the historic leader of the PKK imprisoned in Turkey.
"
We're here because it's our duty, because it's a struggle that our parents had for years and that we intend to continue
," Celik, a 30-year-old woman told AFP. did not want his surname to be cited for security reasons.
The bodies of the three victims will fly to the Middle East in the coming days for burial.
A white march will be held on Wednesday rue d'Enghien at the scene of the tragedy.
And a "
great march
" of the Kurdish community, initially planned for the tenth anniversary of the death of PKK militants, will leave Saturday from the Gare du Nord in Paris.
*Name has been changed.
