What France gets right about assimilation

Among the crimes of Suella Braverman, the now former Home Secretary, was a speech she gave in Washington at the end of September. Multiculturalism had failed, she told her audience, ‘We are living with the consequence of that failure today’. ‘Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades… if people are not able to settle in our countries, and start to think of themselves as British, American, French, or German, then something is going badly wrong.’   

Her speech was predictably panned by the left – Amnesty International accused her of ‘cynicism and xenophobia’ – but also by her allies. Rishi Sunak rejected her assertion that multiculturalism had failed. ‘Something that is incredible about our country, is that it is a fantastic multi-ethnic democracy,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘We have done an incredible job of integrating people into society.