Mad Mel offers her take on the French riots, drawing her inspiration from Jihad Watch and Bat Ye’Or. “Multiculturalism, the doctrine that governs Britain and Europe and which grew out of a war upon their values from within by allowing the values of minorities to trump the majority, has been applied by the west to appease an ideology that has declared war upon its values from without.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 4 November 2005

Of course, the distinguishing feature of French policy is in fact that it rejects multiculturalism in favour of secular nationalism. As a number of commentators have pointed out, this is a contributory factor in the current unrest, as it is difficult for the government to address the problems of oppressed communities when officially these minority cultures do not exist – everyone is supposed to be a French citizen and by definition enjoys equal rights.

When Melanie Phillips and her fellow right-wingers rail against multiculturalism, it’s clear that what they’re really having a go at is the existence of a multicultural society rather than multiculturalism as a policy. It is essentially a racist argument against the very existence of minority communities – at least when those communities are Muslim, that is.