France's interior minister on Monday announced that he would be seeking a ban on the ultranationalist Turkish group, Grey Wolves.
Calling the group "particularly aggressive", Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he would seek its dissolution at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The Grey Wolves made headlines after it was linked to an incident in Lyon where large crowds were seen searching the streets for Armenians. Footage of the incident was shared along with the Turkish name of the group, Bozkurtlar, and the wolf emoji.
Dugun var dugun🇹🇷🐺 pic.twitter.com/ECueh10yOZ
— Zülfikar🐺 (@Zulfikar_bzkrt) October 28, 2020
Turkey currently backs Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and has had historical tensions with the Armenian people.
In addition, a memorial to the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman empire located outside Lyon was recently defaced with pro-Turkish slogans, including some that named the Grey Wolves and that made reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Grey Wolves in Turkey are linked to the country's Nationalist Movement Party, which is in alliance with Erdogan's Justice and Development Party.
While Armenians have termed the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire between 1914-23 a genocide, Turkey has denied the same.
The Grey Wolves are already banned in Austria and in 2019 there were calls to ban it in Germany.
Relations between France and Turkey have soured of late.
France has been grappling with a series of deadly incidents following comments by French President Emmanuel Macron about Islam as well as the decision by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to republish its cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The combination has sparked widespread condemnation from the Muslim world and has incited a series of attacks in France.
On October 29, an Islamist terror attack at a church in Nice left three dead. Two weeks prior, a school teacher was beheaded near Paris, who had allegedly displayed pictures of the Prophet to their classroom. Most recently, an Orthodox priest was critically injured by an attacker wielding a shotgun in Lyon.
President Erdogan went as far as to question Macron's mental health following his comments. France has since recalled its ambassador to Ankara for consultation.
