6 ms·

Talking to friends lived or are still living in France, here are just some of the problems I heard: - in Paris, it's common to get robbed, and sometimes beaten

Talking to friends lived or are still living in France, here are just some of the problems I heard: - in Paris, it's common to get robbed, and sometimes beaten up if you are not careful, and cops can do nothing. This is from a guy who went to school in Paris, I can't imagine what's it like to be a girl. - some of the non-French speaking neighbourhoods are quite dangerous, even cops would avoid going there for their own safety. - many people don't have ID, or use fake ID, so it's easy for criminals to get away. Those lawmakers might be inspired by their American counterparts, but they definitely have some level of local support.

yodsanklai 11y ago
> some of the non-French speaking neighbourhoods are quite dangerous there are no such thing as "non-French speaking neighborhoods" in France.
- smeyer 11y ago
  I'm an American who isn't very knowledgeable about France. Could you expand on this a little bit? There are definitely neighborhoods in the US where even if many people speak English, it's not the dominant language in the neighborhood. For example, places where more signs and labels on shops and such are in some other language than are in English. Are there no similar neighborhoods in France where another language dominates over French?
  - nraynaud 11y ago
    the biggest immigrant community in the US is Mexican so they have a common language that is Spanish. In France it's Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, where they all speak good french and a local dialect of arabic (let's say 60% french speaking people in all 3 countries, declining towards the local dialect), so it's easy to get the French as a common idiom. So you have many languages, but it's easier for everybody to use French anyways. On the food packages, the second most common language (often exactly the same size as the french) is ... Dutch ... Ok, we'll have to go north and speak about Belgium. Those packages are sold in all european French speaking countries (Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Belgium, in one day of trucking you can cross the area). Of those countries only Belgium and Switzerland have another language as official language, and only Belgium require to have both of it's national languages on its packaging (another story of bigotry for next time). One exception to the language distribution I talked about might be the Chinese community, being such a populous country, they can be enough immigrants in an area to avoid French altogether, I don't know them very well, they are very concentrated in small areas, and I don't know if they speak both mandarin and cantonese, or if the majority is from only one linguistic area. But I'm pretty sure the kids speak french at school, it's mandatory and in French here.
    - smeyer 11y ago
      Thanks for the explanation. I was thinking of examples in the US with languages other than Spanish, but I wasn't thinking about the substantial populations of francophone immigrants to France.
      - nraynaud 11y ago
        the difference in size of the country might also be a factor: we're just the size of California, there is not enough "space" (a mix of population and area), to create pockets of people dense enough to self-sustain in a different langage, in an immigration community that would not be the most populous one.
        KMag 11y ago
        It doesn't take as large an area as you'd think. My buddy Dave's father-in-law was born and raised in Southern Manhattan, but speaks only Cantonese and is unable to hold a conversation with Dave (who is from Taiwan, native speaker of Mandarin and English). Dave's father-in-law's English is so poor that he spelled Dave as "Day" on his lai see packet his first Chinese New Year dating his now wife. Luckily, Dave's father-in-law went to Hong Kong to find a wife, who is conversational in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Manhattan's Chinatown is pretty small (the Mandarin-speaking Chinatown out in Queens is much larger), and yet there are people born and raised there who only speak Cantonese.
- analyst74 11y ago
  What was described to me was certain areas in the country or suburban immigrant neighbourhoods, which I assumed to be non-French speaking. But after some reading, it seems you are right, as people in the ghettos still speak French, and not necessarily fresh immigrants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_situation_in_the_French_suburbs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_situation_in_the_French_...
  - lloeki 11y ago
    May I recommend the interested reader to watch La Haine[0] ("hatred") by Mathieu Kassovitz. This movie really sets the mood, and things barely changed since '95. To be fair, such "ghetto" (la cité) people† mostly don't speak "verlan"[1] ("l'envers" with reversed phonetic syllables) anymore, but both the people and slang is usually referred to as "wesh"[2], from an arabic informal salute interjection. It's mainly poorly syntactically and grammatically worded French combined with limited vocabulary and heavy hand gestures and exaggerated arabic accent borrowings (e.g Rs are more pronounced) with various word borrowings from English or Arab. Interestingly enough, I watched it recently in close proximity with The Wire[3], which provided great contrast yet striking similarities, and brings an interesting light into how we used to consider surveillance. In that regard, things have changed a lot. An awful lot, and certainly not for the better. † It should be noted that many people and families that live there have adequate education levels and just live there because the rent is cheap and they can't afford anything else. [0]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/ [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan [2]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wesh http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wesh [3]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306414/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306414/
fermigier 11y ago
Living in France (and more specifically, in Paris) for 46 years, this is definitively not my experience or that of anyone I know.
bilbo0s 11y ago
"...some of the non-French speaking neighbourhoods are quite dangerous, even cops would avoid going there for their own safety..." ??? Do you know what the area this friend spoke of was ??? Serious question.
enqk 11y ago
This sounds like a second-hand, heavily distorted description. For instance it's almost impossible to live in there without an ID of some sort. As a siblings post said, non-french speaking neighbourhoods are not a thing. As for being mugged/robbed etc .. yes it's quite possible in Paris and its suburbs, and you have to be careful (like not showing off your expensive gadgets out in the open)
nraynaud 11y ago
Maybe it's time to change your friends? - there is a lot of criminality in Paris and suburbs, but I have been robbed only once, in a real shithole. There is a lot of white collar criminality too. - there are no non-french neighborhood, most people have french citizenship, most immigrants are from a french speaking country, and even inside a high immigration area, since people are coming from different countries, french language still serves as a communication tool. You will find a foreign language inside a family, sometimes the women won't speak french, but certainly not an entire neighborhood (you will definitely hear some foreign languages in the streets). And contrary to popular belief, almost nobody speaks natively arabic, you will find popular arabic courses (because speaking arabic looks cool in somme communities, and for reading the koran), but very few native speakers. - I'd be very interested in detailed stories of non-white looking people not carrying an ID in France, last time I heard of a brown guy not having an ID it was in the news because the guy was released in appeal: "looking north african does not constitute a reasonable suspicion" (first time ever in France that a racist targeting derails a procedure). It gives you the tonality of the police here. If's you're not white, don't drive a luxury car, you'll get harassed. Don't go out without an ID if you're not white in France, never. They can and will detain you for 4h without any suspicion of crime. Since it's not a criminal procedure, you'll have no lawyer. I'm white, I always go out without an ID, because of white privilege, but my mixed race nephew doesn't have that luxury. (street cred: I lived in a Paris suburb from birth to 18yo, in a shitty area, then I considered my debt to society repaid and I lived everywhere but Paris)
- analyst74 11y ago
  Your answer shed a lot more light to what's it like in France and corrected my misinformation. The guy told me about the danger of Paris is not French, so are most of his friends. I imagine their ignorance about what's dangerous and what's not caused them to get in more troubles than locals like yourself.
  - nraynaud 11y ago
    ok, then let's go back on topic: terrorism. Most of the terrorism in France happens in Corsica. This island is the single biggest budget of anti-terrorism in France. It's where the majority of special police forces are working (in number of deployed people, they are trained west of Paris and sent by plane). in Corsica alone: there were 78 terror attacks in 2012, 21 in 2013, 12 in 2014. And I can tell you that also there is a strong immigration community in Corsica (among mostly racist and weaponized natives, it must be "interesting"), most of that was done by traditional Corsicans. Let's go to our other favorite terrorists: the Basques, basically there was a tacit agreement that they don't spill blood in France and they wouldn't be chased (it's over), so they were bombing and killing in Spain and taking refuge in France. There were bomb attacks in Brittany too, but they are stopped. A common interesting theme between those 3 terroristy regions: they just love speaking and "defending" a local language ... that is not French.
deleted 11y ago
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yodsanklai 11y ago
No, I don't think it's common to get robbed or beaten up in Paris. Although it may happen, just like in most big cities in the world. And yes, there are indeed very poor and gloomy immigrant neighborhoods in France, with a higher crime rate (mostly drug traffic), where cops are not welcome. How bad are those places? depending on their political views, some tell you that these are islamist war zones and other say that these are happy melting pots. This, and the question of immigration is a very sensitive issue in France, and people are extremely divided about it.
cognomen 11y ago
Yea, in French school, there are bullies. I was pushed around too. Whoa, I don't even lived in bad neighbourhood. About fake IDs, I have heard that a lot in the US. In France, I don't know but who am I to tell, I was born there and I just live there. You can buy alcohol when you are 18 and it is easy to get anyway so young people don't care so there is less binge drinking than in the US. Forbidding something is always the best incitation. I am French, lives in a mixed ethnic suburb south of Paris and knows well Paris, lived in silicon valley for three years too. In Paris, I don't know such a thing as non French speaking neighbourhood, meaning a place where you could speak French without the vast majority of people capable of answering you in perfect non accented French. There are places that you could call ethnic with a majority of (French) people of non european descent. I don't know about any nogozone contrary to the map presented by Fox. The original map was probably about something, but it's your guess. Places where housing is substandard, probably. If you are a girl, expect cat calls from young boys. People lets their dog shit everywhere (that has been worse in the past). If you go in touristic places, watch your wallet and count your change. Touristic places are for tourists so you will find your Mac Donalds and Star Bucks. Prêt à porter with sky high price, too. Boring. Expensive. Like any town, there are places whee there are all sort of traffics. News at eleven. Stay away. Unlike many towns in the US, the regular police is not militarized. In fact, municipal polices are not allowed to carry guns. Better to be white or be a tourist with the police if you don't want you id often asked for, but beating to death are very rare. There may place where cops don't go but that may have to do with real estate speculation and future gentrification. Forty years ago, Near Gare Montparnasse, they did let rot a whole area, so they could cheaply expropriate lower middle class people. The police station was 100 meters away. When construction started they dumped the squatters. I know for a fact, I rented a place as a student then. Now, you can buy a nice flat here with people like you, if you have the money. But please don't listen on @cnn or @fox the crap from jewish supremacists like @pamelageller or @rabbischmulley who don't know anything about France, and probably never set foot there. Better for @pamelageller, because by French standards, she looks like a hooker. Contrary to what @rabbischmulley said, there was no progrom avoided by police but a street fight initiated by jewish supremacists. This was provoked in a street with a synagogue but the rabbi of the said synagogue said it was never a target. French press was not so forthcoming with the truth. Contrary to what @pamelaGeller says, France is not surrounded by ennemies (supposedly arabs). Does she know that France is in Europe and only 10% of its population is originally from Maghreb. Criminality wise, Paris is a very average town, except for disenfranchised population of arabic origin who have taken twice the street with French people against Israel exaction in Gaza. I am fed up of the press that takes France in hostage because Israel chooses to systemically violates international laws and at the same time wants to portrays jews as victims and arabs as terrorists. After the terrorist attack against the kasher store, there was a lot of incidents against arabs. Usually not reported, excepted when a comic strike like a girl whose robe was too long and was deemed ostentasiously religious. Every incident involved a jew is reported. Police takes them very seriously. Too much maybe, some (very few) of them have proven to be fake. A major incident is immediately deformed by people like @pamelageller and @rabbischmuley. Apparently, @cnn is not even capable to run google translate on a random french paper to confront them. Recently a "grand Paris" project has been voted. If you see the map, almost a whole departement (county) has been left out except from the transportation for Charles de Gaulle Airport. Also, Minister of education accepts unqualified teachers for the same departement. That's a sad choice, and 20 years down the roads, we will blame the victims. We had institutions that worked and are slowly dismantling them. As tourist, you can eat cheap and good in ethnic places. In touristic places, usually neither. Unlike some americans and their stars and stripes, French people don't have a French flag on their windows. They know about their past in the colonies. But breeding racist in the name of security works pretty well here too. When the rich need people redirect their frustration. nothing beats an internal enemy. And it's cheaper than to wage war outside. Not much left of the "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". People don't know about Ayn Rand here. She is winning anyway. But when I hear about France on the american media, I have no fucking idea of what fantasmed country they are talking about.
cognomen 11y ago
Most immigrants came from French colonies so they speak French to begin with. If your friends are journalists in Fox news, you should have noticed they are not very bright by now. History and geography is not their forte. :)
erispoe 11y ago
Your friends are living in a xenophobic fantasy.
fermigier 11y ago
Regarding murders and homicides, here a recent paper from Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/05/06/en-20-ans-les-meurtres-et-assassinats-ont-baisse-de-65-en-region-parisienne_4628097_4355770.html http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/05/06/en-20... In other words, murders and voluntary homicides have regressed by 65% over the last 20 years in the Paris Region.

yodsanklai 11y ago

> some of the non-French speaking neighbourhoods are quite dangerous there are no such thing as "non-French speaking neighborhoods" in France.

smeyer 11y ago
I'm an American who isn't very knowledgeable about France. Could you expand on this a little bit? There are definitely neighborhoods in the US where even if many people speak English, it's not the dominant language in the neighborhood. For example, places where more signs and labels on shops and such are in some other language than are in English. Are there no similar neighborhoods in France where another language dominates over French?
- nraynaud 11y ago
  the biggest immigrant community in the US is Mexican so they have a common language that is Spanish. In France it's Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, where they all speak good french and a local dialect of arabic (let's say 60% french speaking people in all 3 countries, declining towards the local dialect), so it's easy to get the French as a common idiom. So you have many languages, but it's easier for everybody to use French anyways. On the food packages, the second most common language (often exactly the same size as the french) is ... Dutch ... Ok, we'll have to go north and speak about Belgium. Those packages are sold in all european French speaking countries (Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Belgium, in one day of trucking you can cross the area). Of those countries only Belgium and Switzerland have another language as official language, and only Belgium require to have both of it's national languages on its packaging (another story of bigotry for next time). One exception to the language distribution I talked about might be the Chinese community, being such a populous country, they can be enough immigrants in an area to avoid French altogether, I don't know them very well, they are very concentrated in small areas, and I don't know if they speak both mandarin and cantonese, or if the majority is from only one linguistic area. But I'm pretty sure the kids speak french at school, it's mandatory and in French here.
  - smeyer 11y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. I was thinking of examples in the US with languages other than Spanish, but I wasn't thinking about the substantial populations of francophone immigrants to France.
    - nraynaud 11y ago
      the difference in size of the country might also be a factor: we're just the size of California, there is not enough "space" (a mix of population and area), to create pockets of people dense enough to self-sustain in a different langage, in an immigration community that would not be the most populous one.
      - KMag 11y ago
        It doesn't take as large an area as you'd think. My buddy Dave's father-in-law was born and raised in Southern Manhattan, but speaks only Cantonese and is unable to hold a conversation with Dave (who is from Taiwan, native speaker of Mandarin and English). Dave's father-in-law's English is so poor that he spelled Dave as "Day" on his lai see packet his first Chinese New Year dating his now wife. Luckily, Dave's father-in-law went to Hong Kong to find a wife, who is conversational in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Manhattan's Chinatown is pretty small (the Mandarin-speaking Chinatown out in Queens is much larger), and yet there are people born and raised there who only speak Cantonese.
analyst74 11y ago
What was described to me was certain areas in the country or suburban immigrant neighbourhoods, which I assumed to be non-French speaking. But after some reading, it seems you are right, as people in the ghettos still speak French, and not necessarily fresh immigrants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_situation_in_the_French_suburbs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_situation_in_the_French_...
- lloeki 11y ago
  May I recommend the interested reader to watch La Haine[0] ("hatred") by Mathieu Kassovitz. This movie really sets the mood, and things barely changed since '95. To be fair, such "ghetto" (la cité) people† mostly don't speak "verlan"[1] ("l'envers" with reversed phonetic syllables) anymore, but both the people and slang is usually referred to as "wesh"[2], from an arabic informal salute interjection. It's mainly poorly syntactically and grammatically worded French combined with limited vocabulary and heavy hand gestures and exaggerated arabic accent borrowings (e.g Rs are more pronounced) with various word borrowings from English or Arab. Interestingly enough, I watched it recently in close proximity with The Wire[3], which provided great contrast yet striking similarities, and brings an interesting light into how we used to consider surveillance. In that regard, things have changed a lot. An awful lot, and certainly not for the better. † It should be noted that many people and families that live there have adequate education levels and just live there because the rent is cheap and they can't afford anything else. [0]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/ [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan [2]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wesh http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wesh [3]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306414/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306414/

fermigier 11y ago

Living in France (and more specifically, in Paris) for 46 years, this is definitively not my experience or that of anyone I know.

bilbo0s 11y ago

"...some of the non-French speaking neighbourhoods are quite dangerous, even cops would avoid going there for their own safety..." ??? Do you know what the area this friend spoke of was ??? Serious question.

enqk 11y ago

This sounds like a second-hand, heavily distorted description. For instance it's almost impossible to live in there without an ID of some sort. As a siblings post said, non-french speaking neighbourhoods are not a thing. As for being mugged/robbed etc .. yes it's quite possible in Paris and its suburbs, and you have to be careful (like not showing off your expensive gadgets out in the open)

nraynaud 11y ago

Maybe it's time to change your friends? - there is a lot of criminality in Paris and suburbs, but I have been robbed only once, in a real shithole. There is a lot of white collar criminality too. - there are no non-french neighborhood, most people have french citizenship, most immigrants are from a french speaking country, and even inside a high immigration area, since people are coming from different countries, french language still serves as a communication tool. You will find a foreign language inside a family, sometimes the women won't speak french, but certainly not an entire neighborhood (you will definitely hear some foreign languages in the streets). And contrary to popular belief, almost nobody speaks natively arabic, you will find popular arabic courses (because speaking arabic looks cool in somme communities, and for reading the koran), but very few native speakers. - I'd be very interested in detailed stories of non-white looking people not carrying an ID in France, last time I heard of a brown guy not having an ID it was in the news because the guy was released in appeal: "looking north african does not constitute a reasonable suspicion" (first time ever in France that a racist targeting derails a procedure). It gives you the tonality of the police here. If's you're not white, don't drive a luxury car, you'll get harassed. Don't go out without an ID if you're not white in France, never. They can and will detain you for 4h without any suspicion of crime. Since it's not a criminal procedure, you'll have no lawyer. I'm white, I always go out without an ID, because of white privilege, but my mixed race nephew doesn't have that luxury. (street cred: I lived in a Paris suburb from birth to 18yo, in a shitty area, then I considered my debt to society repaid and I lived everywhere but Paris)

analyst74 11y ago
Your answer shed a lot more light to what's it like in France and corrected my misinformation. The guy told me about the danger of Paris is not French, so are most of his friends. I imagine their ignorance about what's dangerous and what's not caused them to get in more troubles than locals like yourself.
- nraynaud 11y ago
  ok, then let's go back on topic: terrorism. Most of the terrorism in France happens in Corsica. This island is the single biggest budget of anti-terrorism in France. It's where the majority of special police forces are working (in number of deployed people, they are trained west of Paris and sent by plane). in Corsica alone: there were 78 terror attacks in 2012, 21 in 2013, 12 in 2014. And I can tell you that also there is a strong immigration community in Corsica (among mostly racist and weaponized natives, it must be "interesting"), most of that was done by traditional Corsicans. Let's go to our other favorite terrorists: the Basques, basically there was a tacit agreement that they don't spill blood in France and they wouldn't be chased (it's over), so they were bombing and killing in Spain and taking refuge in France. There were bomb attacks in Brittany too, but they are stopped. A common interesting theme between those 3 terroristy regions: they just love speaking and "defending" a local language ... that is not French.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

yodsanklai 11y ago

No, I don't think it's common to get robbed or beaten up in Paris. Although it may happen, just like in most big cities in the world. And yes, there are indeed very poor and gloomy immigrant neighborhoods in France, with a higher crime rate (mostly drug traffic), where cops are not welcome. How bad are those places? depending on their political views, some tell you that these are islamist war zones and other say that these are happy melting pots. This, and the question of immigration is a very sensitive issue in France, and people are extremely divided about it.

cognomen 11y ago

Yea, in French school, there are bullies. I was pushed around too. Whoa, I don't even lived in bad neighbourhood. About fake IDs, I have heard that a lot in the US. In France, I don't know but who am I to tell, I was born there and I just live there. You can buy alcohol when you are 18 and it is easy to get anyway so young people don't care so there is less binge drinking than in the US. Forbidding something is always the best incitation. I am French, lives in a mixed ethnic suburb south of Paris and knows well Paris, lived in silicon valley for three years too. In Paris, I don't know such a thing as non French speaking neighbourhood, meaning a place where you could speak French without the vast majority of people capable of answering you in perfect non accented French. There are places that you could call ethnic with a majority of (French) people of non european descent. I don't know about any nogozone contrary to the map presented by Fox. The original map was probably about something, but it's your guess. Places where housing is substandard, probably. If you are a girl, expect cat calls from young boys. People lets their dog shit everywhere (that has been worse in the past). If you go in touristic places, watch your wallet and count your change. Touristic places are for tourists so you will find your Mac Donalds and Star Bucks. Prêt à porter with sky high price, too. Boring. Expensive. Like any town, there are places whee there are all sort of traffics. News at eleven. Stay away. Unlike many towns in the US, the regular police is not militarized. In fact, municipal polices are not allowed to carry guns. Better to be white or be a tourist with the police if you don't want you id often asked for, but beating to death are very rare. There may place where cops don't go but that may have to do with real estate speculation and future gentrification. Forty years ago, Near Gare Montparnasse, they did let rot a whole area, so they could cheaply expropriate lower middle class people. The police station was 100 meters away. When construction started they dumped the squatters. I know for a fact, I rented a place as a student then. Now, you can buy a nice flat here with people like you, if you have the money. But please don't listen on @cnn or @fox the crap from jewish supremacists like @pamelageller or @rabbischmulley who don't know anything about France, and probably never set foot there. Better for @pamelageller, because by French standards, she looks like a hooker. Contrary to what @rabbischmulley said, there was no progrom avoided by police but a street fight initiated by jewish supremacists. This was provoked in a street with a synagogue but the rabbi of the said synagogue said it was never a target. French press was not so forthcoming with the truth. Contrary to what @pamelaGeller says, France is not surrounded by ennemies (supposedly arabs). Does she know that France is in Europe and only 10% of its population is originally from Maghreb. Criminality wise, Paris is a very average town, except for disenfranchised population of arabic origin who have taken twice the street with French people against Israel exaction in Gaza. I am fed up of the press that takes France in hostage because Israel chooses to systemically violates international laws and at the same time wants to portrays jews as victims and arabs as terrorists. After the terrorist attack against the kasher store, there was a lot of incidents against arabs. Usually not reported, excepted when a comic strike like a girl whose robe was too long and was deemed ostentasiously religious. Every incident involved a jew is reported. Police takes them very seriously. Too much maybe, some (very few) of them have proven to be fake. A major incident is immediately deformed by people like @pamelageller and @rabbischmuley. Apparently, @cnn is not even capable to run google translate on a random french paper to confront them. Recently a "grand Paris" project has been voted. If you see the map, almost a whole departement (county) has been left out except from the transportation for Charles de Gaulle Airport. Also, Minister of education accepts unqualified teachers for the same departement. That's a sad choice, and 20 years down the roads, we will blame the victims. We had institutions that worked and are slowly dismantling them. As tourist, you can eat cheap and good in ethnic places. In touristic places, usually neither. Unlike some americans and their stars and stripes, French people don't have a French flag on their windows. They know about their past in the colonies. But breeding racist in the name of security works pretty well here too. When the rich need people redirect their frustration. nothing beats an internal enemy. And it's cheaper than to wage war outside. Not much left of the "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". People don't know about Ayn Rand here. She is winning anyway. But when I hear about France on the american media, I have no fucking idea of what fantasmed country they are talking about.

cognomen 11y ago

Most immigrants came from French colonies so they speak French to begin with. If your friends are journalists in Fox news, you should have noticed they are not very bright by now. History and geography is not their forte. :)

erispoe 11y ago

Your friends are living in a xenophobic fantasy.

fermigier 11y ago

Regarding murders and homicides, here a recent paper from Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/05/06/en-20-ans-les-meurtres-et-assassinats-ont-baisse-de-65-en-region-parisienne_4628097_4355770.html http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/05/06/en-20... In other words, murders and voluntary homicides have regressed by 65% over the last 20 years in the Paris Region.