WikiLeaks: France has not integrated its minorities

France has not done enough to integrate its ethnic and religious minorities and needs to give Muslims a place in mainstream society, U.S. diplomats said in leaked cables published on Wednesday by a French newspaper.

Vehicles and buildings were torched in 2005 by youths in largely immigrant areas who began rampaging after two of their peers were electrocuted at a power substation while hiding from police they feared were chasing them Photo: AP

11:05PM GMT 01 Dec 2010

Comments in diplomatic cables released by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and published by the daily Le Monde show frustration over France's record in assimilating minority groups and highlight concerns the problem could be deepening.

"France not only has a problem with integration or immigration; it also needs to act to give Muslims a sense of French identity," the U.S. embassy in Paris said in a secret diplomatic cable to Washington dated Aug. 17, 2005.

The comments foreshadowed a wave of violent clashes in December that year between youths, many of them second-generation immigrants, and police in the gritty suburban housing projects that ring major French cities.