The “there are no no-go zones in Paris” (or other cities and towns) mantra can always be challenged by asking those who so maintain to walk through those supposedly faux no-go zones by themselves after dark. Now ever the no no-go zoners are admitting that there might be a few in Paris. From Yves Mamou at gatestoneinstitute.org:
- “There are several hundred square meters of pavement abandoned to men alone; women are no longer considered entitled to be there. Cafés, bars and restaurants are prohibited to them, as are the sidewalks, the subway station and the public squares.” – Le Parisien.
- “For more than a year, the Chapelle-Pajol district (10th-18th arrondissements) has completely changed its face: groups of dozens of lone men, street vendors, aliens, migrants and smugglers harass women and hold the streets.” – Le Parisien.
- In the heart of Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Grenoble, Avignon, districts here and there have been “privatized” by a mix of drug traffickers, Salafist zealots and Islamic youth gangs. The main victims are women. They are – Muslim and non-Muslim — sexually harassed; some are sexually assaulted. The politicians, as usual, are fully informed of the situation imposed upon women.
In January, 2015, a week after the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the American television channel Fox News created a scandal in France by claiming that Islamic “no-go zones” were established in the heart of Paris. For the French media, the existence of no-go zones — where non-Muslims are unwelcome and Islamic law, sharia, holds sway — in the heart of the capital was pure nonsense and horrifying “fake news.” Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said she planned to sue Fox News and that the “honor of Paris” was at stake.
By May 2017, however, the tone had changed. The French daily, Le Parisien, disclosed that, in fact, no-go zones are in the heart of the capital. It seems that the district of Chapelle-Pajol, in the east of Paris, has become very much a no-go zone. Hundreds of Muslim migrants and drug dealers crowd the streets, and harass women for wearing what many of these migrants apparently regard as immodest clothing:
“Women in this part of eastern Paris complain that they cannot move about without being subjected to comments and insults from men.
“There are several hundred square meters of pavement abandoned to men alone; women are no longer considered entitled to be there. Cafés, bars and restaurants are prohibited to them, as are the sidewalks, the subway station and the public squares. For more than a year, the Chapelle-Pajol district (10th-18th arrondissements) has completely changed its face: groups of dozens of lone men, street vendors, aliens, migrants and smugglers harass women and hold the streets.”
Natalie, a 50-year-old resident of the area said: “The atmosphere is agonizing, to the point of having to modify our routes and our clothing. Some [women] even gave up going out.”
To continue reading: France: No-Go Zones Now in Heart of Big Cities