I have come, along with Maite Mola, Vice-President of the ELP, responsible for international relations, Waltraud Fritx-Klackl, member of the ELP Executive Committee and of the Austrian Communist Party, Helmut Scholtz, Member of the European Parliament and of Die Linke, to bring you the support of the European Left party and of the French Communist Party in your struggle for your rights, your culture and your free choices. I have also come to tell you that the French Communist party is totally opposed to Sarkozy’s repressive policy against the Kurds in France. We know that an agreement of cooperation has secretly been signed between France and Turkey to carry out a so-called “anti-terrorist struggle”, which will be expressed by the extradition of Kurdistan Workers’ Party activists. This is a crime against Human Rights; it sullies the image of France, the country of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity.

Indeed, we ask the question: who are the real terrorists? Erdogan’s Turkey has declared total war on the Kurdish people accompanied by a deafening silence internationally. Arrests are being multiplied daily. Thousands of BDP activists, official representatives elected by the people like mayors and members of Parliament are rotting in Turkish jails. President Abdullah Ocalan, sentenced to solitary confinement in prison for the last 12 years is now prevented from seeing his lawyers, in totals violation of legal rules. Erdogan is now threatening to invade Iraqi Kurdistan in complete disregard of international borders backed by the support of US President Obama — in exchange for silting NATO’s anti-missile shield in Turkey to keep watch on Iran. The whole of the Middle East, already ravaged by so much conflict, is in danger of being plunged into complete destabilisation.

Rarely in history has a conflict of this extent been the subject of such political and ideological muzzling. Discussion is stifled so as to stifle the political, social and cultural rights of the Kurdish people.

To offset negative reactions to his refusal of Turkey’s entry into the European Union, Nicolas Sarkozy is indulging, for purely economic and diplomatic reasons, in an ignoble instrumentalisation of the Kurdish people. This policy — which is also that of the European Union — is encouraging escalation and making bad worse for his own ends.

On Sarkozy’s orders, several Kurdish activists have been arrested in the last few weeks, on our own soil and brought before Emergency Courts. This is his way of showing his good intentions towards Ankara, whose national chauvinist, warlike and conservative policies, now increasingly Islamist, continue to worry democrats. However, as with Mubarak and Ben Ali, he keeps silent about the repressive and violent actions of Erdogan.

The PCF and the ELP intend to give full support to the Kurdish people who, without any ambiguity, has made the choice of a peaceful strategy, as shown by the numerous truces that the PKK has announced. This is also shown by its efforts to negotiate through the BDP and by the desire for peace of all.

With you I say: Stop the war! Stop the arrests — NO to the extraditions! Freedom for the Kurdish people! Release Ocalan! Free the members of Parliament, the mayors, the elected local councillors and the recently arrested BDP activists!

In the course of the political debates preceding the parliamentary and presidential elections, the French Communist Party, the Left Front and the ELP undertake a clear commitment to act so that France and the European Union change direction to find a political solution to the Kurdish question and to remind Turkey of its responsibilities. So, dear friends, help us get rid of Sarkozy! Give yourselves more forces in the National Assembly to weigh on Frances choices. Our futures are shared — together we can write create another future for France, for and for Europe.

Long live the Kurdish people!