jonathanfr:
is an official French website that advises travelers by country
I suspect most (major?) countries maintain such a Web site -UK, US and Germany certainly do.
An interesting aspect is the variation between countries and whether this is due to
a. Genuine differences in risk to different nationalities - for instance one might expect countries which have actively taken part in recent wars to identify more risks for their citizens
b. A different attitude towards "risk". The US Department of State has a particular "reputation" for regarding countries as not being suitable
c. Political motivation to create greater isolation for the country concerned.
In the French list I was surprised to see that Pakistan received a blanket advisory. I have had a look at it to see if it has been made very recently following the Charlie Hebdo "provocations" or whether it goes back a lot further. My impression is that the "Formellement déconseillé" status goes back some time.
The UK status for Pakistan is far less strict than that by France and allows travel to most parts of Pakistan apart from e.g Baluchistan, NW Frontier and a few others, together with the need for "care" elsewhere (a common requirement in many countries). It points out that
"Around 270,000 British nationals visit Pakistan every year. Most visits are trouble-free ". What its does NOT say of course is that the vast majority of those visits are by people of Pakistani origin or ethnicity. I suspect that it would be rather reluctant to put out an advisory to the effect that "UK citizens with white skin should not travel to Pakistan"!! In fact my wife and I had an excellent holiday to Pakistan in Nov 2013 when the same advisory was in place. It could be said that we were "lucky" but I genuinely do NOT believe that and am surprised that France should put Pakistan at this highest level.
