Frankfurt – Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have “utterly failed”, says Chancellor Angela Merkel.
She said the so-called “multikulti” concept – where people would “live side-by-side” happily – did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate – including learning German.
The comments come amid rising anti-immigration feeling in Germany.
A recent survey suggested more than 30 per cent of people believed the country was “overrun by foreigners”.
The study – by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank – also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany’s immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for its social benefits.
Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party that at “the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country”. (BBC)
