In a new interview with CNN International’s Hala Gorani, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she’s “still angry” with Fox News over its reports on her city’s supposed Muslim “no-go zones,” confirming that the lawsuit against the network she vowed to pursue will be moving forward.
“It’s done,” said Hidalgo of the legal action against Fox News adding, “We are in a world that can dangerously tip over very easily, as we’ve seen, and we should not accept this type of talk.”
Asked by Gorani what she thought about the claim by The Washington Post that her suit was an “idiotic” ploy, Hidalgo responded,
No, it’s not. It’s not something I’m saying just as a politician. I am profoundly convinced. I do not accept that anyone speaks this way of my city and on top of that, it has economic consequences because some in the United States suddenly became afraid of Paris. And some journalists told me it’s dangerous — we won’t go to Paris anymore. What is that? All because of a lie, this is not acceptable.
Noting that she was still angry at Fox News, Hidalgo stated that the accusations that Paris had no-go zones “was a lie at a very serious time,” adding:
And some like Fox stigmatized a portion of the population and they wanted to show something that doesn’t exist. So it’s normal I’m angry. And I am still angry.
Hidalgo also stated that:
What Fox News did was to lie. It wasn’t opinion or legitimate criticism. We are in a democracy, so real criticism is normal. But it was a lie at a very, very serious time. And some like Fox stigmatized a portion of the population and they wanted to show something that doesn’t exist.
As a matter of background, The Washington Post reports that in January several Fox News hosts falsely reported about these so-called “no-go zones” in both Paris and other European locales, describing them “as places where sharia law allegedly held sway and civil authorities feared to tread,” adding that:
Mayor Hidalgo threatened a lawsuit at the time, telling CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, “When we’re insulted, and when we’ve had an image, then I think we’ll have to sue, I think we’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed. The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced.”
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