Seven out of seventeen Kurds who were taken into custody in the French cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse on 12 February have been arrested on Monday.

Among seventeen detainees, four were released on conditions of judicial surveillance, while twelve were referred to a court in Paris on Saturday. The court ruled to listen to one of the detainees as a witness, while it initiated a criminal case against the other eleven.

The operation against Kurds in France, ordered by anti-terror prosecutors and carried out by police forces, was reportedly conducted in the scope of an investigation launched against Kurds in March 2012 for alleged “attempt to fundraising to provide financial support to PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party)".

The operation against Kurds coincided with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's visit to France where met his counterpart Laurant Fabius on the same day. Many other earlier operations against Kurds living in France had similarly come before or after talks between Turkish and French authorities.

The security cooperation made by France and Turkey in October 2011 allows the police forces of both countries to carry out joint operations against Kurds. This cooperation not only leads to the arrest of hundreds of Kurds living in France but also promotes attacks on Kurdish associations in France and other European countries.

French authorities have yet shed no light on the execution of Sakine Cansız, a co-founder of the PKK, Fidan Doğan, representative of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) in Paris and Leyla Şaylemez, member of the Kurdish youth movement, in Paris on 9 January.

Around 250 Kurds have been taken into custody in France for political reasons since 2007, among them being Adem Uzun, member of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), who has been under arrest since his detention in Paris in October 2012. Despite all the reactions that French left-wing parties and non-governmental organizations have raised against the security agreement with Turkey, the ruling Socialist Party is maintaining the criminalization policies against Kurds first adopted by the Sarkozy government.