After cartoonists were murdered by radical Islamists in cold blood for daring to satirize Mohammed in the French capital, the Mayor of Paris had decided that the real problem is…
…Fox News.
someone should tell the soldier on the right of the frame to stop looking for armed terrorist and instead look for well-coiffed news hosts!
And here’s the kicker: Fox News is the REAL enemy for pointing out that there are areas of Paris that are heavily-Muslim, support sharia law, and are under special government jurisdiction where the police fear to tread.
These “zones” as the commentator describes are called Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or “Sensitive Urban Zones”. They’re specially-designated economic zones which have problems: high unemployment, low education, high poverty, and a high amount of public housing,
There are 718 of those zones in France, and more in and around Paris than in any other part of the country because all of those factors correspond with a high amount of immigrants — new to the culture and usually dependent on government assistance.
Half of all immigrants to France are from Africa and predominantly from Muslim countries which were former French colonies like Algeria and Tunisia. The attackers in the Charlie Hebdo shootings were second-generation Algerian-French Muslim immigrants. Most of these “Sensitive Urban Zones” are populated by Muslim immigrants, making Islam the second most popular religion in France with nearly 5 million adherents.
In 2005, massive riots fueled by second-generation Islamic immigrants against the police in France occurred in large urban areas like Lyon, and were concentrated in these Sensitive Urban Zones. A French police union refused to let their officers patrol these areas when officers were being targeted by these immigrant groups.
As far as the sharia law issue is concerned, a Pew poll found that 56% of Tunisian Muslims supported making sharia the law of the land. These are the countries the immigrants are coming from, and they are not fleeing discrimination but racing towards French economic opportunity.
So there’s nothing factually wrong by calling the SUZ’s “no-go zones”.
But the mere thought that Paris has some dangerous areas populated by an immigrant population hostile to liberal French values is anathema to tourism and the lifeblood of the French economy.
Therefore, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, wants to sue Fox News for an on-air guest making these claims.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo: I’m insulted, and when we’ve had an image, then I think they’ll have to sue, I think they’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed. The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris [has] been prejudiced. And I think in the great discussion of truth, everyone has to play its role and we’re going to have to be realistic and put things as they are.
I have never heard of a mayor of a major world city more blithely incompetent or stupid than this.
Swap out her name for any one of the Islamic clerics or attackers and the message is exactly the same: we feel “insulted”, our “honor” is “prejudiced”.
Whether it’s a cartoon of Mohammed or claiming your city has a real problem with Islamic radicals because people are killed in broad daylight for drawing a cartoon of Mohammed, the freedom of speech includes the freedom to honor or offend, be right or wrong, to be loved or to be verbally hurt.
The reason why we no longer have a society that criminalizes people for offending one’s honor or religion is because we already went through thousands of years of that where hundreds of millions of people were killed.
When your city has fundamental security problems due to poor immigration law and a generous welfare state, it’s not the fault of those pointing it out. When your city lets people in the door who want to destroy it, informing people of the fact is not the crime.
You’re worried about people not wanting to visit Paris and missing out on some tourism revenue? Make Paris safer first. Then worry about their image.
Until then, Mayor Anne Hidalgo stands in the blood of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists justifying their murder by proxy.
