One of my Intel colleagues, a Harvard MBA told me a story of HBS students eager to take John Kotter‘s leadership class, at the time called “Power & Influence.” The students thought that Kotter’s course would teach them how to become calculating and ruthless. He amusingly remembered that Kotter’s course taught them the exact opposite: managers must first learn to be humble, connect and gain the respect of their colleagues and subordinates, before attempting to lead, or they would be doomed. Kotter’s book of the same name is filled with case studies of “ruthless” people who failed and those with humility who succeeded.
Real Power and Influence
One of my Intel colleagues, a Harvard MBA told me a story of HBS students eager to take John Kotter‘s leadership class, at the time called “Power & Influence.” The students thought that Kotter’s course would teach them how to become calculating and ruthless. He amusingly remembered that Kotter’s course taught them the exact opposite: managers must first learn to be humble, connect and gain the respect of their colleagues and subordinates, before attempting to lead, or they would be doomed. Kotter’s book of the same name is filled with case studies of “ruthless” people who failed and those with humility who succeeded.
Aix/Marseilles, Bourdeaux, Lyon, Paris, and Toulouse Are All Thriving French Tech Innovation Hubs
This article and others have focused on the recent meteoric rise of Paris as an emerging high technology innovation hub. However, there is much more to it than just Paris. There are thriving La French Tech Hubs all over France and in international locations around the World. Both KPMG’s annual global Technology Industry Innovation Survey and the 2019 Startup Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Report have validated the significant advance of France and Paris as a leading innovation center.
The French, with their 35-hour workweek and café culture, might be poised to attract the next great tech talent.
Rand Hindi has the quintessential tech guru genesis story. He started coding at age 10 and built a social network by 14. After getting a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, the entrepreneur set his sights on Silicon Valley. But that’s where the narrative began to fray. Despite all the hype, the Bay Area, known for innovation, felt like a bust. “When you [speak] to people, everybody says they want to do something great,” Hindi says. “But what people really want is to work at Google or sell their company to Google.” So Hindi returned to his native France, started Snips, a company specializing in AI voice technology, and watched his company flourish from three employees in 2013 to 80 today.
As a growing souring on Silicon Valley sinks in, young tech workers aren’t just leaving hot spots like San Francisco and New York, as OZY has previously reported. They are also leaving the country altogether. And while Asia’s — and in particular China’s — tech advances are drawing the world’s attention, it turns out that a growing number of startups are swooning for the City of Love.
For the first time, more than half of respondents to KPMG’s annual global Technology Industry Innovation Survey in 2019 believed that Silicon Valley will no longer be the technology innovation center of the world in four years — due to questions around its escalating cost of living, lack of diversity and troublesome corporate cultures. Cities like Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai and Taipei are best placed to replace it, the survey suggests. But it’s Paris that is gaining the most steam. After not being ranked in last year’s KPMG survey, it moved up to No. 14 — behind only London among European cities. Other analysts are even more bullish: Paris ranked fourth in the A.T. Kearney Global Cities Report and third in the IESE Business School Cities in Motion Index.
IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE THINKING ENTREPRENEURIALLY WOULD WANT TO BLAZE A DIFFERENT PATH.
ANDREW RUSSELL, SUNY POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
Driving this shift is a growing contrast in France’s approach toward global tech innovations to the U.K. and the U.S., experts say. On the one hand, London’s status as a financial and innovation hub stands challenged by Brexit’s enduring uncertainties. And America and Britain are tightening up on immigration. On the other hand, the French government is aggressively courting tech entrepreneurs and investments — a strategy that’s showing results. Paris rents are also 61 percent cheaper than San Francisco’s, according to Numbeo, the crowd-sourced global database of statistics such as consumer prices, perceived crime rates and quality of health care.
In 2017, the Emmanuel Macron government introduced a program that fast-tracks four-year residence visas for tech entrepreneurs and their families. Since then, French tech startups are witnessing a dramatic increase in funding: There were 743 French startups raising money in 2017, a 45 percent increase from 2016, according to CB Insights. Global giants are taking notice, with both Facebook and Google opening new AI research centers in Paris. Google has even announced plans to create local “hubs” to teach digital skills in other French cities, such as Rennes, with the goal of getting more people online (and using Google products).
The private and nonprofit sectors are pitching in too. Since June 2017, Paris has hosted the 366,000-square-foot Station F, the world’s largest startup incubator, backed by French billionaire Xavier Niel and Iranian-American executive Roxanne Varza. In October 2018, nonprofit StartHer hosted Europe’s biggest startup competition in Paris explicitly catering to female founders, with a record 363 applications from 30 countries. And this March, the French government further expanded access to its tech visa, from around 100 qualifying startups to more than 10,000.
“It makes perfect sense that people who are thinking entrepreneurially would want to blaze a different path” given the high rent, cost of living and income disparities emerging in the Bay Area, says Andrew Russell, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. Cities like Paris see “an opportunity to capture some of the energy” of Silicon Valley “without falling into some of the excesses and toxicity,” Russell adds.
Admittedly, the European market does not hold the same kind of stratospheric (and, to this point, largely unrealized) potential of Asia. But the new buzz around France’s startup scene simply didn’t exist just a few years ago. Hindi remembers the policies of François Hollande being “anti-startup” when the former French president first took over in 2012. But a rising backlash driven by business leaders led to significant change, says Hindi, a former member of the French Digital Council advising on AI and privacy issues.
Before, if your company went bankrupt, you were banned from starting another one for nine years, making students from French business and tech schools risk-averse. That policy has since been scrapped. Tax credits for hiring people were created, and up to 30 percent of a startup’s technology and salary expenses are reimbursed by the French government, allowing French companies to operate at a fraction of the cost of their foreign competitors. Then there’s the tech visa and its expansion.
Those incentives are sorely needed, considering the obstacles France does have. While the country has enough angel investors — and a de facto investor with the government — there isn’t much of an exit market. Unlike American companies, European companies have a tradition of more of a revenue-profit mindset and less of a willingness to take on the (substantial) risk of acquiring a mid-tier player and turning it into a massive, industry-defining giant, Hindi says. They also prefer to invest in goods and services over potentially groundbreaking technology that needs a few years to develop before producing, he adds. The even bigger challenge? The language, which is why London has typically reigned supreme in the European market.
Some of those issues are more perception than reality, say entrepreneurs and tech workers in France. Snips engineer Allen Welkie — who moved to Paris after working at startups along the East Coast of the United States —says many French-based companies are bilingual and that the visa process was simple. A better work-life balance than in the U.S. helps boost retention too, Hindi says. “In Silicon Valley, everybody is fighting for the same few talented people. … If you’re lucky, they’re going to stay a couple of years. How can you build a company if people are constantly leaving?” As San Francisco becomes more and more untenable for everyone but the highest earners, it’s worth asking whether you can build a city that way either.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to make France a ‘start-up nation’ amid the uncertainty over Brexit is raising the question of whether Paris could supplant London as the capital of European tech. Since his election, Macron has wooed tech entrepreneurs with a string of initiatives in the form of lavish tax breaks, subsidies, and credits for research. In March 2018, he promised to invest €1.5 billion into artificial intelligence research through 2022. Some of these initiatives, in addition to Macron’s dynamism, have lured British tech companies who are looking to gain a foothold in Europe.
Could Macron and Brexit make France Europe’s tech capital? 🇫🇷
Date created : Latest update :
Ludovic Marin/AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron speaks as he visits the start-up campus Station F on October 9, 2018.
This article’s original headline and content focused only on a very large, high profile startup incubator in Paris, but frankly, there is a lot more going on in other parts of France as well.
Shortly after his election in May 2017, President Macron said he wanted France itself “to think and move like a start-up” – a vision of the country’s digital future that is gaining traction as Britain wrestles with Brexit.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to make France a ‘start-up nation’ amid the uncertainty over Brexitis raising the question of whether Paris could supplant London as the capital of European tech.
Since his election, Macron has wooed tech entrepreneurs with a string of initiatives in the form of lavish tax breaks, subsidies, and credits for research. In March 2018, he promised to invest €1.5 billion into artificial intelligence research through 2022.
Some of these initiatives, in addition to Macron’s dynamism, have lured British tech companies who are looking to gain a foothold in Europe.
“It made sense to have a European base,” said Cedric Jones*, a Briton who recently launched a start-up at Station F, the cavernous old train station that is now home to the world’s largest start-up campus. “If I’m going to make waves in continental Europe… I wanted to get here before Brexit happened.”
Jones is among dozens of foreign entrepreneurs who have recently launched their start-up at Station F, whose 3,000 desk hub has seen spiraling applications from English-speaking nationals in the last two years.
Some cite political woes back home, the burgeoning French tech sector, or are inspired by Macron’s bid to make Paris the innovation heart of Europe.
“There’s an air of optimism and a can-do spirit in France that I feel we’ve lost somewhat in the US,” said Mark Heath, a New Yorker, who stayed on in France to launch a start-up after studying at INSEAD in 2017.
The Macron effect
Much of the investment in French tech predates Macron’s reforms. The state investment bank Bpifrance, launched by former French president François Hollande in 2013, has been widely credited with developing the sector. Hollande also set up new foreign visas for start-up entrepreneurs.
But Zahir Bouchaary, a Briton who works out of Station F, credits Macron with injecting dynamism into the sector.
“Macron has installed a [start-up] mentality within the French ecosystem itself,” said Bouchaary, adding that it has become much easier to do business in France in the last few years.
“French customers are a lot more willing to work with start-ups than they were before,” said Bouchaary. “France was a very conservative country and our clients were used to working with big old-fashioned companies that have been around for a while. For the past few years, they’ve opened up a lot more to working with younger companies and seem to take more risks than they did before.”
Jones agreed that Macron was “the single variable”. “When he [Macron] goes, the dynamism will go too. I absolutely would not expect that to remain the case if he’s not the president.”
However, although Macron has moved to ease labour laws, Jones said that navigating the country’s labyrinthine bureaucracy in French remained “very burdensome”, and that it was far easier to build a business in the UK. “Whether it’s from a tax perspective or from a legal perspective it’s just so much more complicated.”
UK tech ‘resilient’
The tech scene in London appears to be just as vibrant as ever, explained Albin Serviant, president of Frenchtech in London, who said many UK-based tech entrepreneurs are adopting a “wait and see” approach to Brexit.
“The UK ecosystem is quite resilient,” said Serviant.
“In the first quarter of 2019, there were about €2 billion invested in tech in London. That’s compared to 1.5 billion last year, which is plus 30 percent. And that’s twice as much as France – which invested 1 billion. France is catching up very fast but the investment money is still flowing in the UK,” he added.
Serviant cited London’s business-friendly ecosystem and international talent pool as reasons for why London remains the capital of the European tech sector. Barcelona and Berlin are also contenders for the UK’s tech start-up crown.
Nonetheless, Serviant cautioned against the effects that a hard Brexit would have on the tech sector in the UK.
“‘If Brexit happens in a bad way and if people like me and other entrepreneurs have to leave, obviously that’s very bad for the UK because what makes it very different is the international DNA of London.”
Hard Brexit would not just damage the UK tech sector but would also pose challenges for British developers, who post-Brexit may need a carte de séjour to work in the country, looking to find work in France.
Sarah Pedroza, co-managing director of Hello Tomorrow technologies, a Paris-based startup NGO, said that if she had to choose between hiring a British national and an EU citizen with the same skillset, she would opt for an EU citizen because there would be less paperwork involved.
Brexit aside, others suggest that France is snapping at the UK’s technological heels.
“I do think France has the potential under Macron to close the gap with the UK,” said Jones.
“The single biggest factor in what’s going on for France is that France is developing a sense of confidence in itself, in its start-up scene, as a tech hub, that’s being helped by France and that’s also being helped by Brexit.”
I want to talk a bit about networking with new acquaintances or renewing old contacts. Networking is often dreaded because it sounds like being disingenuous or insincere. Good networking is genuine and sincere. I made the point in Week 1 that communication skills are crucial, and they can be learned. Warren Buffett has said that “public speaking” is the most important skill he ever learned. So let’s discuss a few ideas on how to make networking less stressful and more successful. In this video, I will list three key things to remember when networking and expand on why they are so important. My UBC Management students will remember this from my Management Communication course.
Welcome to a bonus Week 2 Update of Mayo615’s Odyssey to France.
I want to talk a bit about networking with new acquaintances or renewing old contacts. Networking is often dreaded because it sounds like being disingenuous or insincere. Good networking is genuine and sincere. I made the point in Week 1 that communication skills are crucial, and they can be learned. Warren Buffett has said that “public speaking” is the most important skill he ever learned. So let’s discuss a few ideas on how to make networking less stressful and more successful. In this video, I will list three key things to remember when networking and expand on why they are so important. My UBC Management students will remember this from my Management Communication course.
Welcome to Mayo615’s Odyssey to France and the first of our Tuesday weekly updates. We invite you to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow our weekly updates. In this Week One update we will focus on my first Big Idea, and how I achieved it. I will also discuss my three most important key takeaways from that experience. We hope that you find this video helpful in achieving your own Big Ideas and goals. So here we go.
Welcome to Mayo615’s Odyssey to France and the first of our Tuesday weekly updates
We invite you to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and to follow our weekly updates
In this Week One update we will focus on my first Big Idea, and how I achieved it. I will also discuss my three most important key takeaways from that experience. We hope that you find this video helpful in achieving your own Big Ideas and goals. So here we go.
I want to return to France to give back my experience, skills, and technical knowledge to the country of my heritage. France’s industrial economy is in the doldrums, but new policies are stimulating innovation, the key to economic growth and productivity, and technology industry leaders in France with strong technology industry backgrounds are looking to contribute to this new economy in France. I want to join them and give back.
In less than 24 hours since our campaign launch, we are nearing 10% of our goal
I am a native-born Californian with French family heritage and a French wife. We are both French citizens preparing to return to France. My university background is in the Humanities and Social Sciences, with a year of graduate study at Oxford University, researching in the Bodleian Library. When I returned to northern California, I eventually landed an entry-level job at Intel Corporation, which proved to be the crucible for my entire career. I eventually rose to be a senior executive in international business development with Intel. I have continued in international business for all of my career, working for a number of tech startups and venture capital investment firms over the years. I have led two tech industry consortia to develop global industry standards. I have been the director of a tech entrepreneurial incubator in Silicon Valley for the government of New Zealand and collaborated on mentoring promising entrepreneurs in locations here and around the world. I was an Adjunct Professor of Management at the University of British Columbia for four years.
I want to return to France to give back my experience, skills, and technical knowledge to the country of my heritage. France’s industrial economy is in the doldrums, but new policies are stimulating innovation, the key to economic growth and productivity, and technology industry leaders in France with strong technology industry backgrounds are looking to contribute to this new economy in France. I want to join them and give back.
I am now semi-retired, but very eager to return permanently to France to donate my technology industry experience and knowledge to assist French entrepreneurs to transform France into an innovation-based economy.
FundRazr Campaign Story:
We are David Mayes and Isabelle Roux-Mayes, a married couple, who are also French citizens. I am also a native Californian who has spent my career working for a number of Silicon Valley companies and investment firms, beginning with Intel Corporation. I am now semi-retired, but very eager to return permanently to France to donate my technology industry experience and knowledge to assist French entrepreneurs to transform France into an innovation-based economy. I am focusing specifically on building working relationships with three major new initiatives that could benefit from my background and achievements: The Camp in Aix-en-Provence, launched last year, Startup Garage, Paris, and 1kubator in Bourdeaux.
I am more than happy to share my achievements and references to validate my credentials and verify my ability to make a serious contribution. You can start here with my LinkedIn profile and references David Mayes on LinkedIn. You may also contact me here or on FundRazr where we can discuss my crowdfunding project.
Legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve and over 100 other prominent French women have today written a poignant editorial in Le Monde, warning of a new era of “puritanism” in the wake of the current wave of sexual harassment charges against women. It should force all of us serious thinkers to reexamine the current very valid wave of outrage against sexual harassment and as well, the dangers of excess that hark back to other periods of ugly history. A link to the Le Monde editorial is included here for those who read French or wish to translate the editorial in their browsers. The letter begins by declaring that violence of any kind against women is utterly unacceptable, but makes its point that we are in danger in this era of Trumpism of going into extremism in the name of virtue.
The open letter to Le Monde will undoubtedly spark denunciation by feminists, as has happened in the earlier criticism of women writers like Christina Hoff Sommers, who spoke out about the false claims regarding domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday. The letterraises questions about truth and freedom of speech, especially among women themselves. It will hopefully ignite a monumental ethical and philosophical debate like nothing since Germain Greer debated William F. Buckley at Cambridge.
The letter by French women writers, performers and academics was published in France’s Le Monde newspaper on Tuesday.
“Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss,” it said.
“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or clumsily, is not – and nor is men being gentlemanly a chauvinist attack.”
Harvey Weinstein has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body behind the Oscars
The authors argued that there was a new “puritanism” afoot in the world.
They said that while it was legitimate and necessary to speak out against the abuse of power by some men, the constant denunciations have spiralled out of control.
According to the writers, this is creating a public mood in which women are seen as powerless, as perpetual victims.
“As women we do not recognise ourselves in this feminism, which beyond denouncing the abuse of power, takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality.”
Ms Deneuve, 74, has recently spoken openly against social media campaigns, which, she says, shame men accused of harassing women.
Women and men from all over the globe who have been sexually harassed have been sharing their stories across social media using the hashtag #MeToo.
In France, Twitter users are using #Balancetonporc (“rat on your dirty old man”) to encourage women to name and shame their attackers.
“Anybody but Le Pen”: French turn to tactical voting to stop far right
In a stunning rebuke to Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, French voters rejected her politics of fear. This is particularly poignant following the recent terrorist attack in Paris. The Front National (FN) has traditionally been strong in Provence/Cotes d’Azur, its home base, and Normandy. The National Front failed to win a single region, though it had appeared that the party might win as many as six regions following the first round of voting. French voters exercised “tactical voting” to defeat Le Pen, which sounds very familiar to Canadians in our recent election. The word on the street was “anybody but Le Pen.” Americans need to take note of this and how the United States international reputation is being damaged by Donald Trump.
Front National makes no gains in final round of regional elections
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party misses out a week after achieving record support, exit polls show
An emotional Marine Le Pen speaks after the French regional election results. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters
Sunday 13 December 2015 20.30 GMTLast modified on Monday 14 December 201500.41 GMT
France’s far-right Front National has failed to win control of any regions in the final round of local elections despite a historically high score in the first-round when it was ranked as the most popular party in France.
The defeat of the FN was down to mass tactical voting, an increase in turnout and warnings by the left that what it called the “antisemitic and racist” party would bring France to its knees. All this combined to stop the FN translating its huge first-round score of nearly 28% into the overall control of any region.
But the Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, deliberately avoided any triumphalism and did not claim that the steady rise of the far-right party had been definitively stopped.
“Tonight there is no relief, no triumphalism, no message of victory,” he said. “The danger of the far right has not been removed – far from it – and I won’t forget the results of the first round and of past elections.” He said it was now the government’s duty to “listen more to the French people” and “to act in a stronger, faster way” particularly on employment in a country with record joblessness.
He conceded that tactical voting was not enough to counter the far right and win support: “We have to give people back the desire to vote for and not just against.”
Exit polls on Sunday night showed that with less than 18 months to go until the next French presidential election, the nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-European FN still gained hundreds of regional councillors across France — tripling its presence on regional councils and extending its nationwide reach, cementing its grassroots powerbase and boosting its quest for power nationwide.
Despite the FN failing to grab its first region, Marine Le Pen will still use her party’s first round breakthrough performance as a springboard for her bid for the 2017 presidential election.
Addressing her supporters, Le Pen presented her party as the victim of “calumny and defamation” by the government who she said had “intimidated and infantilised” voters by teaming up with its rivals on the right to keep the FN out of power.
She said the tactical voting by leftwingers who chose Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party in order to put up a “barricade” against the FN had already played into her claim that she and her voters were the victims of an elitist system that persecuted them. She vowed during the campaign that her voters would take their revenge by turning out in even greater numbers during the presidential campaign.
Le Pen herself failed to capitalise on her high first-round score in the vast northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, after the Socialist party pulled out of the race and made an extraordinary plea for its voters to chose Sarkozy’s candidate Xavier Bertrand just to stop Le Pen. First estimations showed that Bertrand, Sarkozy’s former employment minister, won with a resounding 57% of the vote.
In an emotional speech, Bertrand said it was not his “victory” and implored the political class to reinvent itself to counter the rise of the FN.
Le Pen’s 26-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, 26, an MP and rising party star hoping to lead the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, was also kept out by the tactical voting of the left for another Sarkozy candidate, the hardline mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi. First estimations showed he had won by about 54.4%.
The defeat of both the Le Pens showed the difficulty of a far-right personality to get past the 50% threshold when faced with a mainstream candidate. This is crucial to the presidential election where Le Pen is expected to make it to the second-round run-off.
Turnout was up by around seven percentage points on the first-round, especially in areas where the FN could have won, suggesting a strong mobilisation to beat the party. There had been a marked rise in requests for proxy votes between the two rounds.
First estimates showed the left had performed better than expected, winning at least five regions. Sarkozy’s Les Républicains also stood on around five regions, a poorer showing than might have been expected for the main rightwing opposition party, given that two of those regions were won with the support of tactical leftwing voters.
The outcome appeared to comfort the Socialist prime minister’s tactic of agressively warning of the damage the FN could cause. He had warned that if the FN won, it would foster divisions and “this division could lead to civil war”.
He called it a party that “didn’t love France”, that cheated French people and that would bring the country to its knees. The Socialist party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis had also warned that the FN would be like returning to the wartime Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime except “under Vichy it was the Jews [who were targeted]. Now it’s Muslims.”
Marine Le Pen had slammed the tactics and political manoeuvring as undemocratic, accusing her opponents of “intellectual terrorism” in seeking to block her party’s path to power.
The FN was once simply content with attracting protest votes for the gruff ex-paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen, but it has radically changed strategy since his daughter Marine Le Pen took over in 2011, seeking to build a base of locally elected officials to target the top levels of power.
Marine Le Pen’s strategy is to take positions of power across the country. She hopes the good first-round showing, despite not winning any regions, will boost her chances in the 2017 presidential race where polls suggest she could knock out a mainstream candidate and reach the second-round runoff.
Le Pen has led a drive to detoxify the party and move away from the racist, jackbooted, antisemitic imagery of the past. But the party’s hardline positions on Islam and immigration remain unchanged. Since the Paris terrorist attacks last month, the FN’s key concerns – the refugee crisis, security, the place of Islam and national identity – have become the main talking points in France, personally benefiting Le Pen.
The FN sought to capitalise on the sense of disaffection with the mainstream political class, high unemployment, inequality and social despair in a range of areas from rural villages to the northern rustbelt. The party had also capitalised on the migrant crisis, particularly in Calais where thousands of migrants are camping in squalid conditions in the hope of reaching Britain.
This issue began with Fox News alleged terrorism expert, Steven Emerson claiming that there were “no go areas” in England for non-Muslims. In an extraordinary turn of events, British Prime Minister David Cameron was asked to comment on Emerson’s claim, and replied that he had almost “choked on his porridge” when he first heard that claim, and that the alleged terrorism expert was “a complete idiot.” It was an extraordinary but necessary response from the PM, and both Fox News and Emerson apologized to Cameron. But the French were not done with Fox News.. at an extremely sensitive moment for the French, the Canal Plus satirical news show Le Petit Journal, described as something of a French version of John Stewart’s The Daily Show, decided to use classic French satire to further skewer Fox News. The brilliant stroke of genius, included fake news reports from Fox correspondents in Paris reporting from the alleged “no go areas.”
This issue began with Fox News alleged terrorism expert, Steven Emerson claiming that there were “no go areas” in England for non-Muslims. In an extraordinary turn of events, British Prime Minister David Cameron was asked to comment on Emerson’s claim, and replied that he had almost “choked on his porridge” when he first heard that claim, and that the alleged terrorism expert was “a complete idiot.” It was an extraordinary but necessary response from the PM, and both Fox News and Emerson apologized to Cameron. But the French were not done with Fox News.. at an extremely sensitive moment for the French, the Canal Plus satirical news show Le Petit Journal, described as something of a French version of John Stewart’s The Daily Show,decided to use classic French satire to further skewer Fox News. The brilliant stroke of genius, included fake news reports from Fox correspondents in Paris reporting from the alleged “no go areas.”
Fox News Becomes the Unwilling Star of a French TV Satire
Yann Barthès, the host of “Le Petit Journal,” a mock news show that satirized Fox News for its reporting on “no-go zones” for non-Muslims.CreditCapucine Granier-Deferre for The New York Times
PARIS — Mockery is a national weapon in France, so when an American cable news channel raised false alarms about rampant lawlessness in some Paris neighborhoods — proclaiming them “no-go zones” for non-Muslims, avoided even by the police — a popular French television show rebutted the claims the way it best knew how: with satire, spoofs and a campaign of exaggeration and sarcasm.
The show, “Le Petit Journal,” is a French version of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — irreverent and reliant on mock correspondents who showcase the foibles of the high and mighty.
Usually “Le Petit Journal” reserves its venom for French politicians and the local news media. But in the days after the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead, including 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, it set its sights on a trans-Atlantic target, America’s Fox News, after the channel claimed that swaths of England and France were ruled according to Shariah.
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One episode of “Le Petit Journal” featured fake Fox News correspondents screaming about the dangers to be found on the streets and in the kebab shops of Paris.CreditCanal+
“It’s more effective than being upset,” Mr. Barthès said.
On Saturday, Fox News apologized four times on the air for its reports about the no-go zones, acknowledging that there was no reason to believe that they existed. It called the reports an “error” and apologized to “any and all,” including “the people of France.”
It is hard to say whether the apologies were the result of “Le Petit Journal’s” mockery; a campaign instigated by the program to inundate Fox News with emails; or Fox News’s realization that its reporting, which reinforced a popular conservative warning about a purported spread of Shariah in the Western world, was wrong.
In a statement Monday, Michael Clemente, an executive vice president at the network, said: “We issued a correction and apology across several platforms, so that any viewers who may have tuned in to the earlier programming would have a chance to hear our corrected reporting.”
Before the apologies, Mr. Barthès and his “correspondents” hounded Fox News, which is not widely available on French television. Mr. Barthès’s show, which has about 3 million viewers and follows in the satirical tradition of Charlie Hebdo, but in a much gentler style, showed generous portions of the Fox clips where the no-go zones were discussed, providing French translations.
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Mr. Barthès reviewed his script in his dressing room before going on stage. He has hosted the show since it began in 2004.CreditCapucine Granier-Deferre for The New York Times
Their comics confronted Fox News correspondents when they spotted them reporting live in Paris. In one video, two of the show’s correspondents pretended to be American journalists venturing into supposedly forbidden areas and, in slapstick fashion, cowering by a Turkish kebab shop and a couscous restaurant and falling to the ground at the sound of a jackhammer.
Representatives of “Le Petit Journal” also showed up at the New York offices of Fox News on Thursday to seek comment, Mr. Barthès said, until security turned them away.
Mr. Barthès said that his show was unable to obtain any response from Fox News, so he turned to his viewers for help, giving the email addresses of Fox executives. When the show posted the information on Twitter, he said, they had 7,000 retweets in five minutes.
The theme was picked up by others on social media who expressed mock horror at the “danger” in Paris. A food guide site mapped the best places to dine in the so-called lawless zones, including a bakery where the owner had won awards for baguettes.
The commotion began this month when Steve Emerson, identified as a terrorism expert, told the host Sean Hannity, “there are no-go zones” throughout Europe ruled by Muslims. He then elaborated in an interview with another Fox host, Jeanine Pirro, claiming that the entire city of Birmingham, England, was a place where “non-Muslims simply don’t go in.”
On the day the Charlie Hebdo attackers were killed, Nolan Peterson, who on his website describes himself as a freelance writer and a combat veteran, went on Fox News on and identified what he called 741 Muslim-dominated “no-go zones” around France and said the areas reminded him of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq.Even the British prime minister, David Cameron, reacted to the Birmingham claim, saying, “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge.” He called Mr. Emerson “an idiot.”
Muslim leaders say that Muslims are often the victims of attacks, especially since the Paris killings, which were carried out by Islamic militants. The head of a French organization known as the National Observatory Against Islamophobia called for protection by the state, saying there had been “116 anti-Muslim acts, including 28 incidents at mosques and 88 threats,” in the two days after the Jan. 7 shooting.
Fox was abject in its apologies, as was Mr. Emerson. Julie Banderas, a Fox anchor, said that “over the course of this last week, we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.”
“Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly are not allowed in and police supposedly won’t go,” Ms. Banderas continued. “To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”
Apologies were issued on-air three other times.
Carly Shanahan, a spokeswoman for Fox News in New York, said the communications office never received a query by telephone or email from “Le Petit Journal.” Mr. Barthès said the show had made repeated attempts, including his own emails.
Mr. Barthès said he was not sure whether his show could take credit for the apologies. “The important thing is that we really had fun,” Mr. Barthès said. “It’s important for the French audience to know about this. They don’t really know Fox News, and they think it’s an enormous channel, very American, with announcers with big voices and blonde women who look like Barbies.”
Je suis fier d’etre Francais aujourd’ hui. 3.7 Million people turned out in Paris today, officially. Yesterday, large numbers of people also marched in Nice, Toulouse, Lyon and Nantes.
mayo615 