by Daniel Pipes
Tue, 14 Nov 2006
updated Sun, 16 Mar 2008

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They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS, and there are 751 of them as of last count. They are convienently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations.

What are they? Those places in France that the French state does not control. They range from two zones in the medieval town of Carcassone to twelve in the heavily Muslim town of Marseilles, with hardly a town in France lacking in its ZUS. The ZUS came into existence in late 1996 and according to a 2004 estimate, nearly 5 million people live in them.

Comment: A more precise name for these zones would be Dar al-Islam, the place where Muslims rule. (November 14, 2006)

Nov. 28, 2006 update: For an insight into how bad things are, the police in Lyons demonstrated on Nov. 9, denouncing "violence against the forces of order." Things have reached a pretty sad state when the police have to demonstrate in the streets against the criminals.

Jan. 5, 2008 update: In a remarkable statement, Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born bishop of Rochester, writes in the Daily Telegraph about the situation in Great Britain:

there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into "no-go" areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability. Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them.

Jan. 16, 2008 update: Paul Belien of Brussels Journal provides an update on the ZUS, connecting them to organized crime in a way that helps explain police reluctance to intervene:

In May [2007], the French voters elected Mr. [Nicolas] Sarkozy as president because he had promised to restore the authority of the Republic over France's 751 no-go areas, the so-called zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS, sensitive urban areas), where 5 million people - 8 percent of the population - live. During his first months in office he has been too busy with other activities, such as selling nuclear plants to Libya and getting divorced. While the French media publish nude pictures of the future (third) Mrs. Sarkozy, the situation in the ZUS has remained as "sensitive" as before.

People get mugged, even murdered, in the ZUS, but the media prefer not to write about it. When large-scale rioting erupts and officers and firemen are attacked, the behavior of the thugs is condoned with references to their "poverty" and to the "racism" of the indigenous French. The French media never devote their attention to the bleak situation of intimidation and lawlessness in which 8 percent of the population, including many poor indigenous French, are forced to live. Muslim racism toward the "infidels" is never mentioned.

Xavier Raufer, a former French intelligence officer who heads the department on organized crime and terrorism at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Paris II, thinks that organized crime has a lot to do with the indifference of the French establishment.

The ZUS are centers of drug trafficking. According to a recent report of the French government's Interdepartmental Commission to Combat Drug Traffic and Addiction (MILDT) 550,000 people in France consume cannabis on a daily basis and 1.2 million on a regular basis. The annual cannabis consumption amounts to 208 tons for a market value of 832 million euros ($1.2 billion in U.S. dollars). MILDT estimates that there are between 6,000 and 13,000 small "entrepreneurs" and between 700 and 1,400 wholesalers who make a living out of dealing cannabis. The wholesalers earn up to 550,000 euros ($820,000) per year. Since they operate from within the ZUS the drug dealers are beyond the reach of the French authorities.

The ZUS exist not only because Muslims wish to live in their own areas according to their own culture and their own Shariah laws, but also because organized crime wants to operate without the judicial and fiscal interference of the French state. In France, Shariah law and mafia rule have become almost identical.

Mar. 8, 2008 update: Britain has "ethnic" no-go areas for military personnel in uniform, the Times (London) reports today at "Military uniforms in public ‘risk offending minorities'."

Certain areas in Britain will still have to remain off-limits for servicemen and women in military gear, despite the Government's desire for a nationwide uniform free-for-all, senior RAF sources acknowledged yesterday. … one senior air force source said that military commanders had to be aware of potential problems of personnel wearing combat and other military clothes in the street. "We're aware of the sensitivities, for example, in some ethnic minority communities which is why we need to have a dialogue with local authorities and police if we don't want to cause a problem."

Mar. 16, 2008 update: John Cornwell, a leading historian and commentator on religion, is generally skeptical of Nazir-Ali's no-go areas but finds that if anyplace fits the profile, it's Bury Park in Luton:

Luton, like other enclaves, has experienced a spate of incidents that look all too like attempts to make Bury Park a no-go area to non-Muslims. Between November of last year and last month there were 18 attacks – all registered by the police – on five non-Muslim homes in the area. One couple, Mr and Mrs Harrop, white residents in their eighties, have had bricks hurled through their windows. The home of Mrs Palmer, a widow of West Indian origin, aged 70, has been attacked four times; on one occasion a metal beer keg crashed through her bay window while she was watching TV.

Such attacks are not typical of the activities of the sort of radicals who preach a global Islamic state, or potential terrorists, who, according to one of my MI5 informants, merge into a background of "innocent normalcy" till the last minute. DCI Ian Middleton of Bedfordshire police says: "It's the perception of the victims that their Muslim neighbours are to blame, and we have to respect that. But we have our doubts." Middleton suspects, as does Margaret Moran, MP for Luton South, that the attacks could be the work of small groups of white or Muslim extremists, stirring up racial and inter-religious hatred for its own sake.

I was to come across comparable "no-go" incidents in other parts of Britain, such as threats against Muslim converts to Christianity, and attacks on visiting social workers and Salvation Army facilities.

Related Topics: Criminality, Muslims in Europe, Radical Islam