WHILE the world obsesses about Black Lives Matter, almost unnoticed, the French city of Dijon has experienced four days of ethnic violence involving neither black nor white French people.

This should remind us that issues of ethnicity are far more complicated than supporters of BLM would have us believe.

Reportedly a recent attack on a 16 year-old Chechen boy in the city famous for its mild mustard, had led to reprisals by Chechens against local Maghrebi Arabs.

Despite the city’s mayor, Francois Rebsamen, describing the violence as "unprecedented and unacceptable” and the drafting in of police from outside the city, there have only been a handful of arrests.

This should serve as a warning of where defunding the police, as demanded by Black Lives Matter, can lead a multi-ethnic society, not to harmony and rights, but dark age tribal retribution. Of course, it is unlikely that lack of resources is the problem in France, but much more likely a lack of the political will to require the police to uphold the law.

We should value our police, and require our politicians to insist on the law being upheld; the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate.

OTTO INGLIS,

Ansonhill,

Crossgates.