Kurds in France


Kurds in France refers to people born in or residing in France of full or partial Kurdish origin.
There is a large Kurdish community in France, numbering around 150,000 people. This makes the Kurdish community in France the second largest Kurdish community in the Kurdish diaspora, after Kurds in Germany.

Immigration history

In France, Kurdish immigrant workers from Turkey first arrived in the second half of the 1960s. Thousands of Kurdish refugees and political refugees fled from Turkey during the 1970s and onward, from Iraq and Iran during the 1980s and 1990s, and from Syria especially during the Syrian Civil War.

Political activism

In October 2014, Kurds in France and other European countries marched in protest over the ISIS offensive on the Syrian town of Ayn al-Arab, known in Kurdish as Kobani.
On 25 July 2015, Kurds in France marched in Paris to protest Turkish Army airstrikes on Kurdish militia PKK that is designated as a terrorist organization by EU and the U.S.
On 12 October 2019, thousands of Kurds in France marched to protest the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria..

Notable Kurds in France