mis à jour le Mardi 7 avril 2015 à 12h00
Liberation
French daily LIBERATION, April 7, 2015
Jean-Marc AYRAULT, former Prime Minister, Anne HIDALGO, Mayor of Paris, Bernard KOUCHNER, former Foreign Minister, Bruno LE ROUX, President of the Socialist Group in the French National Assembly, Hubert VÉDRINE, former Foreign Minister
Europe’s oldest Kurdish cultural institution, created in February 1983 with the support of the French President and government is likely to disappear for lack of a budget.
In the course of its 32 years’ activity, the Kurdish Institute has become a point of reference in Europe.
In the area of Human Rights the Kurdish Institute has played a decisive role in informing Western public opinion about the situation of this people without a State and deprived of any recognised political representation
The Kurdish Institute has also carried out considerable work for the secular and republican integration of Kurds in France.
Because of its contribution to the republican integration of the Kurdish population here and to France’s cultural influence in the Kurdish world, Pierre Bérégovoy’s government granted the Institute the status of Foundation of recognised Public usefulness. Later the Jospin government, after a thorough audit of its finances and activities, decided on an annual public financing of nearly 600,000 euros. Gradually reduced as from 2002, this grant was abolished during Nicolas Sarkozy’s Presidency.
The Kurdish Institute then had to survive thanks to an exceptional effort made by the Kurdistan Regional government. Since 2014, however, this government, deprived of its financial endowment by Baghdad, submerged by the flood of 1.5 million refugees and displaced persons as well as being confronted by attacks from ISIS is no longer able to come to the rescue of the Kurdish Institute.
The calls for help already issued to the French authorities have, so far, come to nothing.
To ensure its survival, the Kurdish Institute had asked for an annual grant of 650,000 euros (less than 4% of the French subsidies to the Institut du Monde Arabe). Failing a rapid decision by the French authorities, the Kurdish Institute is in danger of having to stop all its activities — just at the time when the whole world is paying tribute to the courage of the courage of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. This would be an incomprehensible paradox — both shocking and absurd.
The undersigned call on the French authorities to help the Kurdish Institute of Paris to continue its tasks — today more necessary than ever before — and this endure its continued existence.
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