Will France Reject Multiculturalism?

The man who is most likely to be France’s next president, Francois Fillon has just denounced the notion of a multicultural France. He said so in a televised debate against the other conservative candidate: Alain Juppe.

At a time when German Chancellor Angela Merkel is struggling to defend her open arms policy, the one that allowed well over a million Muslim immigrants into her nation, Fillon has taken the opposite tack. Undoubtedly, he is also vying to become leader of Europe.

For her part Merkel has declared that she will present herself again to be Chancellor and has denounced the media—who else?-- for publishing reports about the appalling consequences of her refugee policy.

The Daily Mail reports on Fillon’s statements:

When asked whether he saw the future of French society on Thursday as multicultural the conservative firebrand said: 'the answer is no'. 

'France has a history, a language, a culture, of course this culture and language have been enriched by the contributions of foreign populations, but it remains the foundation of our identity,' he said. 

Fillon also rejected the suggestion that France is already a multi-cultural country. 

'No, in any case it's not the choice we made, we did not make the choice of communitarianism and multiculturalism.'

'When we go to somebody's house, we don't try to take power,' said Fillon adding that immigrants must respect France's cultural heritage.

For your edification the conservative Fillon is considered to be a Thatcherite. He is proposing to lead France out of the multicultural wilderness, but also out of the socialist wilderness.

The Daily Mail writes:

'It is true that my project is more radical and perhaps more difficult,' said Fillon, whose economic ideas have been compared to those of late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Fillon, a 62-year-old former prime minister, wants to slash an eye-popping 500,000 public sector jobs over five years and scrap the 35-hour working week in a bid to kick-start the sluggish French economy.

Good luck to him!