“It was staggering, like guerilla warfare,” said Mourad – not his real name – as he took a gulp of his coffee. On the evening of Tuesday June 16th, four days after violent clashes in the city of Dijon made headlines in France and beyond, he still found it hard to come to terms with what had happened. Aged 39, and having been brought up in a rundown city district, he admitted he had never witnessed anything quite like it. “I'm not originally from Grésilles,” he said, referring to the district of Dijon where much of the “guerrilla warfare” took place. “But I've lived here five years. My wife and I came here because of the reduced rents for new-build homes.”
Indeed, the authorities in this city in east France have treated Grésilles as a priority area in recent years and the block of flats where Mourad lives is one of the buildings that have given the area a new look.
But it also looks out on the parking area which was the scene of the shocking violence which broke out in Dijon on Friday June 12th and which lasted throughout the weekend and beyond as members of France's Chechen community - some of whom had travelled considerable distances - fought with local residents. In all, at least 20 people were injured in the disturbances.
By Saturday June 20th four men had been arrested and placed under formal investigation over the violence. Three of them are Russian nationals living in France, and the fourth is a French citizen of Russian origin.
The disturbances began on Friday June 12th at the city centre Black Pearl shisha bar in Dijon's Place de la République. Teenagers Sherine and Samia – not their real names – were sitting at a table with six male friends when they were suddenly confronted with what they call the “horror” of that night.
“It was 11.20pm,” said Samia, aged 17, who referred to an SMS message she had just sent at the time of the attack to jog her memory. Her fingers fiddled nervously with the strap on her bag as the images from that night flooded back. “Around fifty Chechens came hurtling in and started hitting the boys. They broke the mirrors and glass bottles to use them as weapons.”
To begin with the young woman thought it was a terrorist attack. “I heard them cry 'Allahu Akbar' [editor's note, 'God is great'], I thought we were all going to die,” she recalled. “It must have gone on for five minutes but it felt like an hour.”
Her 18-year-old friend Sherine managed to hide herself in the bar's kitchen having got a glimpse of the assailants' baseball bats and iron bars. When eventually she ventured out, she was met by a scene of horror. “There was blood everywhere … One of my friends had a piece of mirror stuck in his head. I immediately searched for Samia, I was very worried about her.” Samia had been hit a few times with items of furniture but was okay. Both called the ambulance service and the police, and tended to those who were hurt.
As they left the bar Sherine and Samia saw a group of Chechens in a car, and also saw the police nearby. “[The Chechens] followed us and took photos of us. When we asked the police to intervene they replied: 'What do you want us to do, there are too many of them!',” recalled Sherine. She found her handbag on the ground in the street, all her personal effects gone. “They had taken it from me in the bar. I didn't even have my keys to get into my home.” The two women were put up by a friend for the night.
When Mediapart spoke to other local people on the morning of Wednesday June 17th they were still astonished by what had gone on. Ali, not his real name, who is in his sixties, was out shopping and stopped to discuss the violence with the owner of the grocery store and two young people. “It was all deliberate, it's not possible to let people terrorise an entire neighbourhood for three days without reacting,” said Ali, a father, who has lived in the area for 20 years.
“The police were present on Friday and there are cameras everywhere,” said another man, pointing to the cameras in question. “They didn't arrest anyone, they let them do it.” After the attack on the shisha bar that evening the police reportedly barricaded the Place de la République to protect the town centre. But several witnesses said that the Boulevard Georges-Clemenceau – which leads to Grésilles – remained open.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
At around midnight on that Friday between 150 and 200 members of France's Chechen community attacked that residential district in what appears to have been a revenge attack for an assault on a young Chechen in the city. “They didn't break or burn anything,” said Mourad, who had been awakened by the noise and the shouts. “They wanted to find the person behind the attack on a young Chechen a day earlier.”
From the window of his living room, where he left the light off for fear of being spotted, Mourad saw around 150 people in cars arrive at the parking area. “They had baseball bats, iron bars and firearms. A man below us was beaten up, that could have been me,” he said, pointing out that his job involves being on call, and that he sometimes comes home late.
Yacine, not his real name, who lives on the ground floor in the same block of flats, says he was woken up in panic by his wife who heard the commotion outside. It was, he says, like a scene from a film. “I was going crazy, I didn't know what more to do to protect my wife and my children. In the end I took them up to a neighbour's [flat] on the third floor.” For three days Yacine, who is in his thirties, stayed off work – which involves night shifts – to avoid the danger.
Fatima, aged 40, and Lina, 25 – not their real names - are standing near the offices of the regional health authority, the Agence Régionale de Santé (ARS), discussing the recent events. “We put up with 72 hours of violence before the police intervened,” said Fatima angrily. “We felt insecure in our own neighbourhood, even though life here is normally peaceful. I can go for a walk at 2am with no problem!”
Both women have always lived locally and hate seeing their neighbourhood's reputation dragged through the mud. “People pointed the finger at us over so-called rival gangs and drug trafficking, when what was involved was a fight. We don't support these fights but it's nothing to do with all that,” said Lina. Fatima added: “To save the honour of one person they trashed the image of a whole neighbourhood.”
Fatima acknowledged that there was some crime in the area “the same as anywhere” but said just a minority was involved. “Ninety percent of the residents are honest,” she said. “We went to French schools, we work and we're citizens like anyone else.” She is sure that things would have happened differently if a “more affluent” neighbourhood had been involved.
“We felt alone, abandoned, as if we didn't deserve the protection of the forces of law and order, and that we were worthless. It's a form of racism,” said Lina, who swears she will never look at the police in the same light again. Both women fear that the violence will restart. Fatima, who has an evening job to make ends meet, has had someone accompany her for the past two days. “I'm seeing a psychotherapist to calm me down. We've been so afraid that we're not sleeping at night,” she added.
It is 5pm and Rachid H. and Nabil are sitting at a café in Place Galilée in the centre of Grésilles. Both know the area well; the former was born and bred here, the latter comes from the Mail district of the Dijon suburb of Chenôve, but has been a football coach here for years. The two men discuss the “passivity” and “complicity” of the police and raise questions over the responsibility of the prefect, the local state representative.
“It's deliberate as far I'm concerned. There are four main routes into Dijon, they could have stopped them reaching us,” said Rachid H., who is waiting for the prefect to acknowledge what he sees as a “major failure” in the state official's duties.
Many videos at the time of the disturbances show vans containing local police and officers from the CRS riot police on Avenue Champollion and Boulevard des Martyrs de la Résistance, two main roads which run along the edge of Grésilles. In a video filmed on Sunday June 14th, and obtained by Mediapart, six CRS vans can be seen parked in Place Galilée, just off Avenue Champollion.
“I wondered who these militia were and initially I thought that the far right were coming to lynch us. It was like a clear out. In the end what was most appalling was not the actions of the Chechens but in fact the inaction of the forces of law and order,” said Rachid.
Demonstration against the prefect
The two men soon brought up the astonishing video in which a car is seen hurtling into the old market place on the afternoon of Saturday June 13th. Some have claimed that the local resident driving it was trying to run down groups of Chechens on the parking area. But others insist that he in fact panicked and was simply trying to get out of the area via the Avenue des Grésilles.
“We know the driver well, he's a calm guy. He'd worked all day and had drunk a little. He found himself in the middle of this guerilla war and he tried to save himself,” said Rachid H., who was present at the time. “You can clearly see that he doesn't hurtle to the right to target the Chechens,” added Nabil.
There had been a rumour going around Dijon that “representatives” from the Chechen community and from the community in Grésilles had a reconciliation at the local mosque. This has since been confirmed by Marianne magazine. “We don't really understand who these representatives are,” said Rachid. “It seems that some sheep have been offered by way of apology. This isn't the Middle Ages! You need the law, you don't solve anything like that.”
That same afternoon a convoy of CRS riot police vans drove through Grésilles. “The CRS looked like they were keeping watch … but on who? What purpose does it serve now they [editor's note, the Chechens] have gone? They didn't do anything when we needed them,” said one shopkeeper in Place Galilée as she prepared to drive home.
As evening fell a group of women gathered under the entrance porch to the market. There were about ten of then, aged 43 to 76, and they usually meet up at the same spot each day. All said they have been “traumatised” by what had happened. “Several of us called the police, they either told us that they were already aware of it or they hung up,” said one. Yamina, the oldest of the group, stayed holed up in her home for three days. “I'm disabled, imagine what they could have done to me if I'd come across them,” she said.
In fact a number of the women stayed in their homes while others took refuge with relatives outside Grésilles. “We're in France, there are laws! If there was an assault they can make a formal complaint! This is not the way to do things,” said Soumya, before calling to her children to go back home.
The following morning Rachid A., who is in his thirties, is sitting in the Moroccan-style living room of his flat in the Mail neighbourhood in Chenôve. He twists and turns in pain, trying to get comfortable. “It was mainly my back that was hurt,” he says, staring into space.
On the table lies a copy of the witness statement he has given as part of the formal legal complaint he lodged on Saturday after going to hospital. For no other reason, perhaps, than his origins, Rachid A. was beaten up by Chechens on the Friday evening, while he was with five friends in Grésilles.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
“We were in the parking area when we saw ten cars arrive,” he said. He and his friends did not have time to react. Rachid A. can still picture the iron bar raised above him. “They attacked us without trying to find out who were were. It was six or ten against each of us. It was their leader, whom they called el-Hadj, who shouted 'stop' after ten minutes.”
But just as he thought the ordeal was over, another attacker stopped him. “I shouted that I wasn't from here, but from Chenôve,” said Rachid A. “He asked me what my origins were and I said Moroccan and he punched me and insulted me. Their leader took me to one side and said to me: 'Go on, get lost. And don't hit the little one again!' I didn't even know who he was talking about.”
Rachid did not see what had happened to his friends. He fled and telephoned a relative who lives near by. It was that relative who took him to hospital, where victims from the shisha bar had also gone that evening. Rachid A. was signed off work for eight days, suffering from torn gums and an injured back. “I was lucky compared to others,” he said. “One Grésilles resident was shot, my friends were hit on the head with an iron bar.”
His wife Hanane and their eldest son are still in a state of shock and cannot sleep at night. Hanane went back to work the following Monday but had a panic attack. Her boss brought her home and gave her a week off work.
In their living room the news channel BFM TV is on constantly. The couple do not understand why it took six days for the authorities to carry out any arrests. “After what we went through, the Chechens continued to attack innocent people for three days. They also came to Chenôve on Sunday evening,” said Hanane.
The Chechens in fact came to a street near their home in Rue des Tamartis, and next to the Édouard-Herriot middle school. Three Chenôve residents, Rachid, Hotman and Bilal, have spoken of little else since. “We were warned that they were coming. Around fifty cars with their number plates concealed,” said Bilal. Rachid A. added: “Six vans of CRS [riot police] were also there. When we tried to escape one cop told me: 'Go back home, they're coming! I'm going to give them your address!”.
Once again several people were injured and the Chechens also reportedly occupied the stairwell in some apartment blocks, including one building where a funeral had taken place. “I met the mayor this morning and he criticised what the people had had to go through,” said Hotman.
“That's why we fought back on Monday. They attacked Grésilles and Mail even though the attack on the young person involved someone from Quétigny,” said Bilal, 21, referring to a south-east suburb of Dijon about 6km away. “The police did not react, we had to defend ourselves as best we could.” He said that around a hundred youths, plus some older men, armed themselves with sticks and went to help out the residents of Grésilles that afternoon.
The residents burnt rubbish bins to block routes leading to the neighbourhood. Some cars were also set alight, in particular in Mail, damaging the front of a block of flats. Hooded, and armed in a variety of ways, they say they wanted to fight those who had spread terror for three days. But the Chechens did not turn up that day. “There were some snipers from RAID [editor's note, a police tactical unit] on the roofs in Place Galilée,” said several witnesses.
More than a week after the start of the violence, important questions remain unanswered. How were groups of 100 to 150 people able to enter Dijon and then move around unhindered from neighbourhood to neighbourhood for three days? Where did they stay at night? Photos taken by residents from Chenôve show what appears to be a Chechen camp at the Combe à la Serpent park in Dijon, but the images are not conclusive.
At around 2pm on Thursday June 18th around twenty Chechens gathered outside the police station in Dijon to show their support for members of their community who had been arrested that same day. “Our husbands were violently arrested this morning even though we have young children,” said two women. By coincidence Sherine and Samia, the two victims from the shisha bar, were also at the police station to make an official complaint.
On Saturday June 20th the state prosecutor for Dijon, Eric Mathais, who insisted that the events in the city had been “unforeseeable”, said that they had identified 20 victims of the attacks, including one man who had been shot in the shoulder. He said four people had been placed under formal investigation – one step short of charges being brought – in connection with the incidents. They are a 23-year-old Russian citizen who has refugee status and is living in Saint-Etienne, in south-east France; a 29-year-old Russian from Troyes, south-east of Paris; a 53-year-old Russian with refugee status from Dole, south-east of Dijon; and a French citizen of Russian origin living in Dijon.
The government responded to the incidents in Dijon by sending junior interior minister Laurent Nuñez to the city on Tuesday June 16th, though he did not visit Grésilles where he had been due to meet local residents. Meanwhile the interior minister Christophe Castaner called for a “firm response”.
Around one hundred local residents angry at the response by the public authorities staged a protest on Saturday June 20th, despite a ban on the gathering issued by the local prefect Bernard Schmeltz. Some held a banner calling for the prefect himself to resign, blaming him for the failure of the police to intervene in the city. “If the prefect had done his job we wouldn't have seen these images and had this bad publicity for Dijon,” one Grésilles resident,Youssef Drissi El Bouzaidi, told the AFP news agency.
The prefect has denied the claims. Bernard Schmeltz said in a press release: “There is an unfounded claim suggesting that the police did not intervene and that the neighbourhoods were abandoned to the punishment of a violent group. That is, of course, not true.”
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version and additional reporting by Michael Streeter