The Vagon-Li Incident started in 1933 when the director of the Vagon-Li Company informed the Turkish-speaking officer that the official language of the company was French, and gave fines and suspension from work.
In the French railway company Vagon-Li (Wagons-Lits), a French railway company with sleeping and dining wagons, on February 22, 1933, Belgian manager Jannoni informed Turkish-speaking officer Naci Bey on the phone that the official language of the company was French, fined 25 cents and suspended from work for 15 days. sentenced him.
When this event was reflected in the newspapers of the period, on February 25, 1933, the students of the Darülfünun and the National Turkish Student Union, including well-known names such as Peyami Safa and Cahit Arf, gathered and started to protest in front of the company office in Beyoğlu. Later, the events escalated, and the students, who broke into the office by breaking the windows, destroyed the office after they took the picture of Mustafa Kemal hanging on the wall. The group came to the company's Karaköy office with the picture of Mustafa Kemal and Turkish flags in their hands, and they also destroyed the office after they took the picture of Mustafa Kemal from the wall. The crowd, who finally arrived in front of the Istanbul Governor's Office, continued the demonstration in front of the newspaper buildings for a while and dispersed after they delivered the Mustafa Kemal pictures in their hands to the Community Center.
After the events, the company recruited Mr. Naci. Many foreign companies around Pera, where minorities and non-Muslims live intensely, started to use Turkish names and said “Citizen, speak Turkish!” campaign was launched. The Vagon-Li company was later nationalized like many foreign companies from the Ottoman period.