THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: France has not done enough to integrate its ethnic and religious minorities and needs to give Muslims a place in mainstream society, U.S. diplomats said in leaked cables published on Wednesday by a French newspaper.
Comments in diplomatic cables released by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and published by the daily Le Monde show frustration over France's record in assimilating minority groups and highlight concerns the problem could be deepening.
"France not only has a problem with integration or immigration; it also needs to act to give Muslims a sense of French identity," the U.S. embassy in Paris said in a secret diplomatic cable to Washington dated Aug. 17, 2005.
The comments foreshadowed a wave of violent clashes in December that year between youths, many of them second-generation immigrants, and police in the gritty suburban housing projects that ring major French cities.
Television footage of burning cars and rioting youths was beamed around the world, casting a spotlight on tension between the French government and descendants of immigrant groups, many of whom belonged to France's 5-million-strong Muslim community.
"The real problem is the failure of white Christian France to view its dark-skinned and Muslim compatriots as citizens in their own right," the U.S. embassy told Washington in a cable dated Nov. 9, 2005. Craig Stapleton was U.S. ambassador to France under the administration of President George W. Bush. >>> | Wednesday, December 01, 2010
