Dijon (AFP)
It would have been enough from the aggression of a teenager to transform peaceful Dijon, little used to urban violence, into a theater of punitive expeditions of the Chechen community and of retaliation from its inhabitants. A lot of videos on social networks.
Few details have filtered on the assault Wednesday of a young Chechen of 16 years who will set fire to the powder.
A call to avenge him was published the following day on Snapchat. It meets an important echo.
"Solidarity is important to us. It is the only way we have had to survive against Russia", explains Heda Inderbaeva, who presents herself as one of the spokespersons in France for this community from the Caucasus.
Who assaulted the young man? Dealers? Is this the only cause of what follows?
Friday around midnight, about fifty Chechens arrive at Place de la République, in the heart of the city, equipped with iron bars and baseball bats.
They target businesses run by people of North African origin leaving 10 injured, according to police sources.
One of these establishments, the "Black Pearl", a hookah bar, has since been closed and placed under seal.
Mayor PS François Rebsamen witnesses the scene. As he returned home with his wife, he saw the heavily armed group. He gives the alert to the police.
To the police who arrived on the scene, the attackers explained that they had come to take revenge. They leave the sector to go to the Grésilles sector where they will again attack several people.
- from France and Belgium -
The following night, tensions continued in Les Grésilles, a working-class district which had benefited from major urban renewal works.
Around 11:00 p.m., ten Chechens go to a pizzeria. A lively discussion followed. Later, individuals return and fire several times with a long weapon towards the establishment, according to police sources. Are they the same ones who came a little earlier?
The brother of the manager of the pizzeria has a lung injury.
During the night, some residents say they heard gunshots from Kalashnikovs. The investigation should confirm this.
Sunday at the end of the afternoon, attempts at appeasement between representatives of the Chechen community and the inhabitants. This will not prevent the situation from escalating again a few hours later.
Around 9:00 p.m., some 200 Chechens return to the neighborhood where police reinforcements have been dispatched. They came from France and Belgium, said the spokesperson for the community.
At this moment, a vehicle arrives at high speed, buttes on a slope in front of the crowd of hooded men and turns around. The scene, worthy of an action movie, will be filmed and posted on social networks where it was cheerfully shared and commented. Like the video showing his driver, in bad shape, lying on the ground.
The Chechens are then seen at various points in the Dijon agglomeration before disappearing.
For the prosecutor Eric Mathais, we could be there facing "a communitarian and racist drift, with a punitive expedition of Chechens, a revenge, on members of the Maghreb community, who would have assaulted a young man, perhaps in the context of a drug trafficking case. "
"This punitive expedition did not target the police at any time," he told AFP.
According to a security source, the Chechen community in France is well established in the Paris region, Nice and Strasbourg, but also in smaller agglomerations like Besançon and Dijon. It is marked by a significant community retreat and some of its members have developed criminal activities.
- "unbearable reality" -
Monday, the affair takes a controversial and political turn.
"Supervise and surround to avoid abuses: it was the only practicable strategy", justifies the prefect of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, while some point out that the police force was then under-numbered compared to the Chechens.
A reinforcement of 110 police and gendarmes is announced for the evening which will be again agitated ... but a priori without implication of Chechens.
Around 5:00 p.m., new gathering at Les Grésilles. Individuals display what appear to be assault rifles or automatic pistols. And "there is no reason to think that they are artificial weapons", notes the Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, who came to support the population and the forces of the order.
In videos relayed on social networks, we see masked men shooting in the air, calling on the Chechens to come back to do battle.
Vehicles and garbage cans were set on fire; an attacked France 3 Bourgogne team (they filed a complaint) as well as another driver. Four people will be arrested, the first since the start of the incidents.
Tensions move to Chenôve, on the outskirts of Dijon where 18 vehicles burn at night, raising fears of a conflagration of the suburbs.
The condemnations are unanimous, from the National Rally to the Insubmitted.
Prime Minister Édouard Philippe speaks of an "unbearable reality".
The president of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, comes to denounce "the surrealist community brawls between Chechens and Maghrebins". "We no longer know if we are in the Wild West or in Baghdad," she thunders.
Tuesday evening, nearly 150 reinforcements are dispatched on the spot. "They will be there as many times as necessary," says Laurent Nuñez.
grd-sm-lv-san-clw / fga / cbn
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