French President Nicolas Sarkozy claimed recently on French TV that muticulturalism in France "has failed", in a remark which seem to have been made with the 2012 presidential election in mind.
Sarkozy made his remark last Thursday on TF1 television during a nationwide broadcast which saw him face-to-face with a panel of nine French citizens.
Responding to a question submitted by a viewer on the subject of multiculturalism, he did not mince his words, declaring that "My response is clearly yes, it is a failure" because "the truth is that in our democracies we’ve been overly concerned with the identity of the new arrival and not concerned enough with the identity of the country which is welcoming him."
He went on to say that people who come to live in France should accept that they should merge into France’s national community if they wanted to be made welcome, insisting that although Muslims should be able to follow their religion, that religion can only be "an Islam of France and not an Islam in France."
On the subject of Muslims holding prayers in the street, Sarkozy made it clear that "we do not want people praying in an ostentatious manner in the street" and that France didn’t want "aggressive religious proselytizing."
Concerning illegal immigration, the President deplored that for years the only policy had been to "regularize en masse those people without papers" and said that this policy had made integration impossible because "you can only integrate people if you have a home and a job to offer them."
The first thing that springs to mind about his statements is that they are not unlike those made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the same subject last October – she said that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany had "utterly failed" – and nor are they very much different to those made recently by British Prime minister David Cameron, who also made a speech on what he alleged to be the failings of multiculturalism in Britain.
Those two speeches were much commented upon in France, and it would not be unreasonable to say that there was more than a smattering of approval and understanding of them, given France’s own problems with the integration of immigrant populations, and most notably that of France’s Muslim community, which is around 5 to 6 million strong (8-9.6% of the total population.)
France under Nicolas Sarkozy has seen a clampdown on illegal immigration which has included a large increase in the number of flights taking illegal immigrants back to their country of origin as well as the highly-controversial repatriation of thousands of Roma to Romania and other countries. He has also overseen legislation which has banned the burqa in public buildings and the civil service as well as other places.
These moves were supported by a majority of the French, and it seems that with the 2012 presidential elections beginning to become news Sarkozy may be paving the way for a two-pronged attack designed to cut the grass from under the feet of his two main rivals.
Far-right National Front party leader, Marine Le Pen, daughter of the party’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently made headlines and gained poll support for her claims that Muslims praying in the street was akin to a kind of "occupation of parts of the national territory." This was seen as a blatant attempt to steal potential votes from disgruntled elements on the right-wing of Sarkozy’s support base.
Also – but perhaps to a lesser extent due to their continuing disorganization – the French Socialist Party has been making noises about scrapping its traditionally relative lenience towards illegal immigration in an attempt to reconciliate itself with French public opinion, which is adopting a more decidedly less indulgent opinion vis-à-vis immigration as time goes by, that which puts it in step with a general tendency in Europe.
Sarkozy’s poll ratings are still hovering around the 30% mark, and if an election were to be held tomorrow he would lose to current IMF leader and highly-respected Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn were he to return to France and run.
His statements on Thursday represent not only a stinging rebuke of multiculturalism in France, they may well also be a sign that he is prepared to move to the right on immigration if that is what is necessary for him to be reelected.
Leave Your Comments