2011 Update: Scotland Yard and local Muslims are organizing a radical Islamist effort to establish sharia micronations in London. These micronations are a threat to not only native Europeans but the majority of Muslims who do not wish to live under an Islamist tyranny.
Note: No-Go Zones are the product of a radical ideology. Catholicgauze denounces all radical ideologies including Nazism and racism. “White Nationalism” is just as bad as Islamic Separatism.
An increasingly common thing in European cities is the no-go zone. These are places where the police, medical rescue crews, and other government agents will not venture into. The areas are viewed as just too violent and/or risky to enforce rules. Following the rules of ungoverned spaces, anarchy does not reign for long. A group will enforce its own rule set and the no-go zone will become a microstate.
In France, no-go zones are referred to in the original argument as Zones Urbaines Sensibles (Sensitive Urban Zones). A few were described as truly no-go zones, while most were simply areas where the government was focusing more development and where police required special procedures to operate.
The distinction is important. The original article did not claim that all 751 ZUS were no-go zones, despite this being falsely reported on some “anti-jihadist blogs” at the time.
The article argued that a few of these areas, primarily around Paris, were under the influence or control of radical Islamists. From these troubled neighborhoods around Paris and other urban centers, Islamic militants were described as waging a cultural and sometimes even guerrilla warfare against French police.
Police themselves were also protesting violence directed against them. In Lyons, police unions were reported as describing the situation in particularly severe terms, including claims of a “civil war” against police.
It is important to remember that the Islamist movement in France is small overall. However, the much larger issue of racial discrimination against people from Muslim backgrounds can feed resentment that extremist movements may attempt to exploit. The original argument was that even some non-Islamists could engage in violent action that indirectly benefited Islamist causes because it challenged French rule of law.
The rest of Europe was described as moving down a similar path. The United Kingdom was debating whether different groups should be under separate laws.
If this were to happen with official approval, the original article argued, it would only be a matter of time before political unity itself was called into question.
Europe, with what the author described at the time as a dying population and hostile race relations, faced a bleak future.
Historical and Current Context
The terminology used in debates about European “no-go zones” needs an important clarification. France’s Zones Urbaines Sensibles, usually abbreviated as ZUS, were an official urban-policy classification. They were not an official French government designation for territories where police, emergency services, or other state authorities could not enter.
The ZUS designation identified neighborhoods facing significant social, economic, employment, housing, and urban-development difficulties. There were 751 ZUS, but describing all 751 as “no-go zones” would therefore be misleading.
Conditions also differed considerably from one neighborhood to another. Some areas experienced serious problems involving riots, attacks on police, crime, social exclusion, or radicalization. Those problems did not mean that every neighborhood carrying the ZUS designation had ceased to be governed by the French state.
The administrative terminology has also changed since this article was written. From 2015, the former ZUS framework was replaced by France’s Quartiers prioritaires de la politique de la ville, commonly abbreviated as QPV.
About the 2011 London Update
The 2011 update should likewise be understood in its historical context. Radical Islamist activists in Britain promoted the idea of so-called “Sharia-controlled zones” and used signs and other campaigning tactics to claim particular areas.
Such campaigns did not create legally recognized autonomous territories or “micronations” outside British law. The language in the original update reflects the author’s interpretation of those events at the time and should not be read as evidence that Muslim communities generally supported such campaigns.
Why the Distinction Matters
The phrase “no-go zone” has never had the same precise meaning as an official administrative designation such as ZUS or QPV. It has been used by journalists, politicians, activists, police representatives, and commentators to describe very different circumstances.
There is therefore an important distinction between documenting real problems involving violence, policing, social exclusion, separatist ideology, or extremist activity and treating an entire officially designated neighborhood as territory beyond state control.
Read today, this article is most useful as a record of the geopolitical debate taking place in Europe in 2006 and the way concerns about immigration, integration, policing, radicalization, demographics, and political cohesion were being interpreted at the time.
The final prediction that Europe faced a “bleak future” was the author’s contemporary assessment, not an established factual outcome. Preserving that conclusion provides historical context, while the clarification above separates the original commentary from the official meaning of the geographic and administrative terms involved.
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