FRANCE’S NO GO ZONES: Women fight back after being BANNED from streets by Muslim men

A women’s rights campaign group is organising marches and protests in a bid to retake streets in predominantly Islamic neighbourhoods which they say have become entirely male dominated. 

La Brigade des Mères, which is aiming to restore gender equality in France’s troubled ‘banlieues’, says women in many communities are now too scared to go out because gangs of young men rule the streets. 

And a shocking undercover report, compiled by the TV channel France 2, shows how women are not welcome in bars and cafes in Muslim majority areas, with many men openly hostile to their presence in public at all. 

For the report two brave women from La Brigade des Mères wore button-hole cameras and headed alone into the Muslim majority Paris suburb of Sevran, which was at the centre of the French capital’s 2005 race riots. 

Nadia Remand and Aliza Sayah visited the streets and cafes of the notorious banlieue to build up a picture of how welcome women were in its public spaces. 

As soon as they entered one bar, which was filled entirely with young men, the owner approached them and asked what they were doing there, and if they were waiting for a man. 

When the women said that they were, he advised them: “It’s better to wait outside. There are men in here.” 

When the pair countered that it was perfectly normal for women and men to be in a bar together another young man spotted them, and shouted incredulously: “There are men in here!” 

The women then asked him why he thought their presence was unusual, suggesting that he would perhaps go out for a coffee with a female friend or cousin, to which he replied: “My cousin stays at home.” 

He continued: “In this cafe there is no mixing. You are in Sevran, you’re not in Paris. It’s a different mentality.” 

The man insisted the Paris suburb was like the “bled” – A French slang term for a person’s home country which is frequently used by Muslim migrants from north Africa. 

The video clip in the Express has subtitles; I am still struggling to embed it into this NER blog. You may have to follow the link to the page. 

The France 2 journalist then travels to a neighbourhood in Lyon, where the streets are apparently shown to be occupied almost solely by Muslim men. A young, white woman who works as a childminder says she wouldn’t dream of wearing a skirt or make-up outside in the area, and that she does her best to go unnoticed. Asked why, she tells the programme: “Simply, we are afraid”.

in a video response to the report, Ms Maréchal-Le Pen said was evidence that some parts of the country are “no longer the land of France, because Islamic law has taken hold”. She said: “It is no longer the law of France that applies, it is not the law of the Republic, we are witnessing the establishment of mini Caliphates where it’s Islamic law, Sharia, that applies every day.