РУССКИЙ
10:28 18.07.2026 •
Prophecies Disproved. Great minds have ceaselessly proclaimed the advent of a new world. We take stock of their predictions. What remains of multiculturalism, born in the wake of the civil rights movement fifty years ago? – Le Journal du Dimanche writes.
Among the major political and philosophical failures of recent decades, multiculturalism must now be included. Not in the sense of the empirical pluralism that animates societies, but as an ideology that prophesied the overcoming of the nation-state in favor of an aggregate of cultural enclaves without common norms or a unifying culture. Born in the middle of the last century in the wake of the civil rights movement, conceived as a counterpoint to an assimilationism deemed too narrow, this doctrine has become the de facto policy of the Anglosphere and a good part of the West.
Canada is undoubtedly the country that has done the most to formalize multiculturalism. The philosopher Charles Taylor lays the intellectual groundwork for this by postulating that the recognition of minority identities constitutes a fundamental right. It was in this context that Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada, stated that “everyone who lives in Canada is now part of a minority group”, and that his son Justin later declared in the New York Times that the country constituted “the first post-national state.”
Democracy without national sentiment becomes impossible. While few countries have gone this far rhetorically, it must be admitted that most Western nations have followed the same path by liberalizing their immigration policies, deconstructing their own national symbols, and implementing affirmative action policies. This explosive mix is now leading to a disintegration of citizenship, under the influence of increasingly assertive particularisms, to which integration demands are no longer voiced.
In retrospect, it appears that the architects of multiculturalism probably took for granted the automatic adherence to Western values by populations sometimes very far removed from the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Political clientelism
In Canada, for example, several members of parliament are suspected of having used their positions to promote the interests of foreign powers, such as India or China. Lack of integration also fosters political clientelism, as international issues, such as the recognition of Palestine or the secession of the Indian province of Khalistan, increasingly dominate local politics, to the detriment of the national interest. We are therefore rediscovering that democracy, without national sentiment, becomes impossible.
In the United Kingdom, Pakistani grooming gangs that sexually exploited thousands of British girls were long protected from prosecution for fear of shattering the myth of diversity. It was only years later that the truth came to light. In the United States, the massive fraud perpetrated by Somali nationals in the state of Minnesota, using sham associations and businesses to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, shocked the public for the same reasons. While the narrative of peaceful multiculturalism assumes automatic integration into Western values and identification with the community of citizens, a growing number of abuse cases prove that this is not a given. These numerous occurrences form the primary driver of the now global backlash against mass immigration, which has been steadily intensifying since 2015.
The conditions for the viability of social cohesion are now at stake.
We are therefore living through a strange period, that of a “zombie multiculturalism.”
All these excesses have definitively demonstrated empirically that the idea upon which multiculturalism was built, summarized by the slogan “diversity is our strength,” is false. A nation cannot survive without common foundations, and it is, on the contrary, a strong moral, cultural, and normative base that allows for the harmonious expression of differences.
Discredited by reality
While France has managed to resist some of these deadly trends due to its republican DNA, which staunchly upholds an indivisible citizenship, it is by no means immune. Communalism, Islamist radicalization, and the now omnipresent insecurity all refute the myth of "happy identity," a carefree attitude that has undermined the foundations of the social contract in France.
Discredited by reality, declared dead by centrists like Angela Merkel and David Cameron since the 2010s, multiculturalism is nonetheless no less operative today. Despite a hardening of rhetoric among politicians, no country, except perhaps Denmark, has put an end to the migration crisis. It is also difficult to imagine a state outside Eastern Europe that has abandoned the rhetoric of diversity to place its symbolic power at the service of the national narrative.
We are therefore living through a strange period, that of a "zombie multiculturalism." No one seems to truly believe it anymore, yet its prayers are repeated like a faithless ritual. The ideology has foundered, but the idea that "our differences unite us" persists like Plato's noble lie, because it is less painful than admitting that we no longer share much with some of our fellow citizens.
Nevertheless, one senses that, like the communism of the 1980s, the multiculturalist illusion is running out of steam. In every European country, the civilizational question constitutes the new axis around which the political contest is being reshaped, a sign of growing popular discontent. Soon, the Berlin Wall will fall, and the lie with it. Nations will have no choice but to confront their mistakes in order to change course, because the facts have now demonstrated that no society can survive without a shared identity, norms, and traditions.
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