Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said Wednesday at the White House that promoting “a more inclusive city” would help counter radicalisation. She also confirmed a defamation suit against Fox News for saying areas of Paris were "no-go zones" for non-Muslims.
Hidalgo is among representatives of 60 countries attending the three-day summit on countering violent extremism, which has been in the pipelines for months but acquired greater significance after recent terrorist attacks in Parisand Copenhagen.
On Wednesday, she told delegates in the US capital that cities such as Paris should aim for “the exact opposite of the no-go zones dreamed up by certain parties”, referring to last month’s widely ridiculed claim by Fox News that there are parts of Paris where police and non-Muslims fear to tread.
Hidalgo, 55, later confirmed that the French capital had filed a legal complaint against the US television channel for defamation. “I cannot let a lie of such gravity go unpunished,” she told reporters. “Paris is a city of opportunities, progressive and humanist.”
But the left-wing mayor said Paris had much to learn from US cities when it comes to integrating minority groups and fostering solidarity between communities.
She said the January 7-9 attacks on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Paris kosher store, in which 17 people were killed, highlighted the threat to the “foundations of our democracy”.
The attacks, carried out by homegrown terrorists with an immigrant background and a history of petty crime, have prompted a bout of soul-searching in France and raised uncomfortable questions about the country’s integration model.
Hidalgo pointed out that anti-Semitic acts had doubled in France between 2013 and 2014, with anti-Muslim acts up 10 percent over the same period.
US example
Paris’s first female mayor said her administration had drawn inspiration from community service in the US to encourage dialogue between grassroots associations, promote investment in poor neighbourhoods and help former inmates to reintegrate into their communities.
She proposed introducing “Paris resident cards” from the age of 7, regardless of nationality, modeled on New York City’s ID cards, and preventing kids from dropping out of school.
“Behind every path to radicalization there is a failure at school,” she said.
Remarking on what she perceived as a “greater personal commitment” by US citizens, Hidalgo called on Parisians to become “more involved” in efforts to promote “fraternity” and “inclusion”.
“Withdrawal and narrow-mindedness” cannot be the response to jihadism, she said.
Her comments came a day after US Vice-President Joe Biden urged European countries to emulate the American "melting pot" approach to integrating immigrant communities.
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