French police are investigating the murder of three Kurdish women activists, who were found dead in the early hours of Thursday at a community centre in Paris.
One of the founding members of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Sakine Cansiz, was among the victims, according to Firat News Agency, a mouthpiece for the PKK, and the French-language ActuKurdes website.
The bodies of the three women were discovered at the Centre for Information on Kurdistan in central Paris. Police said the three women had been shot in the head.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who visited the scene in the 10th district of Paris, said they had "probably been executed."
Valls named one of the victims as the president of the centre, Fidan Dogan, but would not be drawn on the identities of the other two. Police said two of the women were aged 25 and 28. The third women was not carrying identity papers.
Cansiz had been living in exile for several years. Turkey had in the past issued an international warrant for her arrest for membership of the PKK. She was arrested in Germany in 2007 but later released.
Hundreds of members of the Kurdish community gathered outside the centre Thursday morning to protest the killings.
The mostly male crowd shouted slogans expressing their anger. "We are all PKK," they shouted. Some called for revenge and accused the French state of failing to protect the women.
Speaking to television cameras at the scene, Valls gave assurances of "the determination of French authorities to elucidate this act," which he called "unacceptable."
The centre is located on the first floor of a building on a busy street. Members of the community became alarmed after failing to make contact with the women on Wednesday afternoon. They discovered the bodies after eventually breaking down the door of the centre.