From Fox News:
In hundreds of French "no-go" zones -- neighborhoods where neither tourists nor cops dare enter -- poor and alienated Muslims have intimidated the government into largely ceding authority over them, prompting fears that the kind of jihad that gave rise to last week's attack in Paris is festering unchecked.
In some ways, these 751 areas designated by the French government -- officially called zones urbaines sensibles (sensitive urban zones), or ZUS, for short, but referred to as “no-go” zones by some observers -- resemble poor sections of America’s cities where gangs rule, crime and drugs are rampant and police only enter with significant backup. But in the wake of last week’s massacre at Charlie Hebdo and the fact that hundreds of radicalized Muslims who went to train or fight in Syria and Iraq could return, some experts fear the next terror attack will be launched from inside one of France's no-go zones.
“These ‘no-go’ zones are essentially breeding grounds for radicalism, and it’s a very big problem,” Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, told FoxNews.com. “These are areas where essentially the French government has lost control.”
Created in 1996, the zones are sprinkled throughout cities and suburbs in rundown neighborhoods France sought to revitalize with tax breaks for businesses. Most of the zones are blocks of neighborhoods, with the average ZUS containing about 6,000 residents. An estimated 5 million people live the zones, and most of the residents are part of France's 10 percent Muslim population. In some zones, Islamic law actually supersedes the French legal system on civil matters such as property disputes, adultery and divorce.Trading land for peace might work at the edges of an Empire, but not in the heart of one's own country.
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