The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel: "lmmigrants should learn to speak German"
Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed",
Chancellor Angela Merkel says.
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% 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.
Foreign workers
Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at "the beginning of the 60s our
country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our
country."
She added: "We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime
they will be gone', but this isn't reality."
Analysis
Stephen Evans BBC News, Berlin
Angela Merkel took pains to say immigrants are welcome.
The words "utterly failed" are very strong, but there are also nuanced messages
about the usefulness of immigrants in a country that needs skilled labour.
She is pitching it very carefully, with important elections coming up in the
spring.
The tone is very important.
The chancellor is basically saying that Germany needs immigrants but immigrants
need to do something to get into the society.
"And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live
side-by-side and to enjoy each other... has failed, utterly failed."
In her speech in Potsdam, however, the chancellor made clear that immigrants
were welcome in Germany.
She specifically referred to recent comments by German President Christian
Wulff who said that Islam was "part of Germany", like Christianity and Judaism.
Mrs Merkel said: "We should not be a country either which gives the impression
to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were
not raised speaking German are not welcome here."
Mounting debate
There has been intense debate about multiculturalism in Germany in recent
months.
Correspondents say Mrs Merkel faces pressure from within her CDU and its allies
to take a tougher stance and require immigrants to do more to adapt to German
society.
Earlier this week, Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister
party, the CSU, said it was "obvious that immigrants from different cultures
like Turkey and Arab countries, all in all, find it harder" to integrate.
"'Multikulti' is dead," Mr Seehofer said.
Earlier this month the chancellor held talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, in which the two leaders pledged to do more to improve the
often poor integration record of Germany's estimated 2.5 million-strong Turkish
community.
The debate first heated up in August when Thilo Sarrazin, a senior official at
Germany's central bank, said that "no immigrant group other than Muslims is so
strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime". Mr Sarrazin has
since resigned.
Such recent strong anti-immigration feelings from mainstream politicians come
amid an anger in Germany about high unemployment, even if the economy is
growing faster than those of its rivals, our correspondent says.
He adds that there also seems to be a new strident tone in the country, perhaps
leading to less reticence about no-go-areas of the past.