Battleground Dijon

Dijon, in eastern France, is famous for mustard. However, if the violence in the city continues, Dijon may be known as a symbol of “post-national” France.

The mayhem began on June 10th. North African drug dealers, probably including members of the city’s Algerian drug mafia, attacked a 16-year-old Chechen resident, probably because Chechens do not tolerate the drug dealers. An attack on an elderly Chechen followed. In response, hundreds of Chechens, including some armed with bats, axes, knives, and guns, stormed through Dijon’s North African neighborhoods. At one point, as many as 200 Chechen men entered Gresilles, a predominately North African suburb. These so-called “punishment raids” have not only seen Chechens brutalizing North Africans, but also the usual anarchy that comes with rioting (burnt cars, burning trash cans, graffiti, etc.).

Paris sent police officers to the city in order to take it back from Chechen and North African gangs. Prefect Bernard Schmeltz summarized the violence as “a settling of scores” between the two groups. On Twitter, Vladislav Davidzon of the Odessa Review writes that Chechen hatred of drug dealers is widespread and well-known, and because of this the French authorities waited before moving into the city. It is possible that the French in Dijon back the Chechens as type of extralegal anti-drug task force.

Some might cheer Chechen gangs that beat up North African drug dealers, but how did Chechens in Dijon as well as Chechens from as far as Belgium and Germany manage to take over Dijon’s streets for several nights in a row? Ethnic gangs, not the police, have begun enforcing the law, though it is not the Napoleonic Code, but the tribal law of the Caucasus. In Chechnya, blood feuds are common. Two wars (1994-1996, 1999-2000), as well as the still simmering insurgency in Southern Russia, prove that Chechens are capable of violence in the name of nationalism and Islam. The community avenges any insult to a Chechen.

Their North African opponents are not shy about violence either. Paris’s banlieues prove it. Most of the residents are from the former French colonies of Algeria and Morocco, and many, especially the young, love hip-hop and riot every time one of their own has a bad time with the police. They hate France.

As many as 30,000 Chechens live in France. Thousands more live in Belgium, Germany, and Denmark. In Vienna, Chechen mobs terrorize civilians, while a death squad imported from the homeland executed political refugees. There were similar reprisals in Paris, especially during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. Dijon, a historically safe city, has seen a noticeable uptick in crime over the last three years, and this mirrors trends in the whole country. France, like most of the West, is on course to be minority-majority some time in the middle of this century.

What is happening in Dijon is a glimpse of the future. Rather than rely on the police, people may begin to form armed self-defense gangs. That is normal in low-trust societies. We are approaching that situation in the United States, as police watch while antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other thugs tear down statues, loot, and burn. The American police have never been more scrutinized and criticized. Even in France, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said police are incurably racist.

Americans and Europeans may have to form self-defense militias. They would be friends and neighbors who are agree to rush to each others’ defense. The police will not save us.