Germany: the multicultural model has totally failed, Merkel

Written by Sandeep Nehra

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that the model of a multicultural Germany, where different cultures live together harmoniously, had “totally failed”, while the immigration debate ignited in Germany.

Germany lack of skilled labor and cannot do without immigrants, but they should integrate and adopt the German culture and values, “she insisted in a speech to the Youth of the training conservative.

The credo “Multikulti” (multicultural) – “We live side by side and we are delighted” – failed, she said. “This approach has failed, utterly failed,” insisted the Chancellor to the youth convention of his party CDU and its Bavarian CSU for at Potsdam near Berlin.

The immigration debate divides Germany since the publication of a pamphlet of a senior official, Thilo Sarrazin, who under the title “Germany is defeated,” says his country “brutalized” by the weight Muslim immigrants.

The politicians have condemned his views, but according to polls a majority of Germans agree. A study released this week shows that even over 50% of them do not tolerate Muslims. Over 35% believe that Germany is “swamped” by foreigners and 10% that Germany should be directed to “a firm hand” with a “Fuhrer”.

Merkel seemed household and the liberal wing of his training and the conservative wing, embodied by the leader of the CSU, Horst Seehofer.

He had already launched Friday before the same audience: “We are committed to a reference culture and cons German multiculturalism. The Multikulti is dead.”

While affirming that Germany remained an open country in the world, Angela Merkel said: “We do not need an immigration burden on our social system.”

However, the country will make the economy even though foreign specialists form of German unemployed, said the Chancellor.

According to the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), Hans Heinrich Driftmann, lacks the German economy around 400,000 engineers and qualified staff.

“It costs us about 1% growth,” he said in the newspaper Welt am Sonntag published Sunday, advocating for a skilled immigration.

Seehofer was a scandal a week earlier, saying that his country had “no need to immigrants from countries with different cultures, such as Turks and Arabs”, because integration “is ultimately more difficult” for them.

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, said Saturday that the speech by Mr Seehofer was “totally irresponsible” and the debate on integration of immigrants “disproportionate, hypocritical and hysterical.”

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