Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society has "utterly failed," Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, adding fuel to a debate over immigration and Islam polarising her conservative camp. Skip related content
Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel said allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating had not worked in a country that is home to some four million Muslims. "This (multicultural) approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin.
Merkel faces pressure from within her CDU to take a tougher line on immigrants who don't show a willingness to adapt to German society and her comments appeared intended to pacify her critics.
She said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and repeated her usual line that they should learn German in order to get by in school and have opportunities on the labour market. [Reuters] Read more
Why German Chancellor Merkel Said That Multi-Culturalism is a Failure When German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested to an audience Saturday of young Christian Democratic leaders that "the approach (to build) a (multicultural) society and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other ... has failed, utterly failed" that was with specific reference to Germany’s Muslim population.
That remark wasn’t plucked out of thin air. Rather it came from several years of social science research by the Federal Ministry of Interior and more recently surveys conducted of German youths including Muslims. [The Iconoclast] Read more
