In 2010,
Raphaël Stainville of French newspaper
Le Figaro called certain neighborhoods of the southern city
Perpignan "veritable lawless zones", saying they had become too dangerous to travel in at night. He added that the same was true in parts of
Béziers and
Nîmes. In 2012, , the mayor of the French city
Amiens, in the wake of several riots, called the northern part of his city a lawless zone, where one could no longer order a pizza or call for a doctor. The head of a local association said institutional violence had contributed to the tensions resulting in the no-go zone. In 2014,
Fabrice Balanche, a scholar of the Middle East, labelled the northern city of
Roubaix, as well as parts of
Marseille, "mini-Islamic states", saying that the authority of the state is completely absent there. In 2005 France's domestic
intelligence network, the
Renseignements Generaux, identified 150 "no-go zones" around the country where police would not enter without reinforcements.
Christopher Dickey, writing in
Newsweek, claimed the situation had arisen due to racism towards immigrants.
January 2015 controversy In January 2015, after the
Charlie Hebdo shooting, several items on
Fox News labeled the ZUS as "Islamic
no-go zones". French media agencies denied these claims. After complaints Fox News issued an apology, saying that there was "no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion." A couple days later,
Anderson Cooper on
CNN issued an apology as well. ==See also==