Today, the West is not debating whether it needs immigrants, diverse cultures, and complex identities, but rather who will manage this diversity—a strong constitutional state or an angry mob. When Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard declares multiculturalism a "false idea" and a "failed ideology," he misdiagnoses the problem: it is not the concept of cultural pluralism that has failed, but rather the weakness of governments that feared demanding integration, defending the rule of law, suppressing radicalism, and speaking honestly to the public about real challenges. Rejecting multiculturalism will not save the West; it will only hand racists, extremists, and populists a convenient language of vengeance, in which millions of citizens will once again become "outsiders" not because of their actions, but because of their heritage, religion, surname, and skin color.
Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard’s article in Le Journal du Dimanche, titled "Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States: Anatomy of the Failure of Multiculturalism" ("Canada, Royaume-Uni, Etats-Unis : autopsie de l’echec du multiculturalisme"), is built on a harsh yet overly convenient premise: that multiculturalism has supposedly proven to be a "false idea," a "failed ideology," and a political myth that the West can no longer defend even to itself. The formula is dramatic: if a country experiences rising crime, falling trust in institutions, soaring housing costs, struggling schools, a police force afraid to speak the truth, and politicians buying the votes of diaspora communities, then multiculturalism must be to blame. Yet, this is where the primary intellectual deception lies. Beauregard mistakes a crisis of governance, security, social policy, integration, and political courage for the collapse of cultural pluralism. This approach absolves governments, municipalities, parties, intelligence services, courts, schools, labor markets, and housing markets of responsibility, turning a complex political failure into a simple and dangerous slogan: "diversity has failed."
This is precisely the trap into which Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard falls when he writes that multiculturalism has become a "false idea," that the West has entered the era of "zombie multiculturalism," and that the slogan "diversity is our strength" has proven to be a noble lie. His text is valuable not because he is right, but because it exposes the raw nerve of modern Western politics: the right is no longer arguing against the poor management of migration; they are arguing against the very existence of a complex society.
This is a fundamental substitution of terms. Multiculturalism does not mean an absence of laws, weak borders, parallel courts, ethnic quotas devoid of merit, religious radicalism, or a rejection of the state language. None of this is multiculturalism; it is the capitulation of the state. Genuine multiculturalism does not begin with slogans about "diversity," but with a strict rule: diverse identities have the right to exist only within a single civic, legal, and political order.
Beauregard is right about one thing: a society cannot survive without a shared foundation. However, he is wrong about the most important part: this foundation does not have to be ethnic. In a democratic state, it must be civic. The Constitution, the law, the language of public life, loyalty to the country of residence, equality between men and women, the inviolability of the individual, the secular nature of government, the prohibition of violence, and accountability to the taxpayer—this is the foundation. It does not demand cultural sterilization. It demands political discipline.
Beauregard's Convenient Error: Mistaking the Crimes of a Minority for a Diagnosis of Society
The weakest element of anti-multiculturalist rhetoric is its methodology. It takes real scandals, real crimes, and real failures of policing and public services, and then draws a sweeping conclusion about the "collapse" of the entire principle of cultural coexistence.
Yes, the United Kingdom has seen horrific grooming gang scandals. Yes, for years, the state acted with cowardice and unprofessionalism, often fearing to address the background of some of the perpetrators. The audit by Baroness Louise Casey, published in June 2025, was commissioned precisely because of the failure of institutional responses to these crimes. Following this, the British government launched a full-scale public inquiry. This is not an argument against multiculturalism; it is an indictment of the police, social services, local councils, political correctness devoid of conscience, and a bureaucracy that prioritized protecting its own reputation over protecting children.
Yes, the United States saw the "Feeding Our Future" case—a massive scheme to defraud a federal child nutrition program. The US Department of Justice called it a $250 million fraud, and by November 2025, the number of defendants had reached 78. But turning a criminal case into a verdict on the Somali community, or any other diaspora, is intellectually dishonest. In a functioning state, a criminal has a first name, a last name, a bank account, a signature, defense counsel, and a sentence. An ethnic group cannot bear collective criminal responsibility.
Yes, Canada has faced foreign interference. Reports from Canadian national security agencies speak directly of attempts by foreign actors to influence democratic processes, diaspora communities, politicians, and the media landscape. Once again, this is not an argument against multiculturalism. It is an argument for robust counterintelligence, transparent party funding, strict control over foreign agents of influence, and the protection of diaspora communities themselves from pressure by their countries of origin.
Beauregard wants to prove that society is fracturing because of the recognition of differences. The reality is more complex: society fractures when the state recognizes differences but fails to demand shared responsibility.
Canada: Not a Country "Without a Nation," but a Laboratory of Complex Citizenship
Canada has indeed been the most ambitious experiment in Western multiculturalism. The policy was officially introduced under Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1971 and later enshrined in the Multiculturalism Act of 1988. For critics, it represents the abandonment of the nation. For defenders, it is an attempt to build a nation around citizenship rather than ancestry.
Beauregard recalls the elder Trudeau's remark that everyone living in Canada belongs to a minority, as well as Justin Trudeau's words about Canada being a state where the traditional concept of a nation no longer holds the same meaning. These formulas were indeed dangerously poetic. A state cannot merely be an administrative shell for various groups. But this does not mean Canada must return to a model where a cultural majority is the sole owner of the country.
According to the 2021 census, immigrants made up 23 percent of Canada's population—8.36 million people. This is the largest proportion in more than a century and a half. In 2024, Canada welcomed 483,640 new permanent residents. Under pressure on housing, infrastructure, and services, the government revised its intake targets: the plan for 2026 targets 380,000 new permanent residents, along with reductions in international student visas and temporary worker flows.
This is where the honest conversation must happen. Canada has not failed because it recognized identities. It is facing a crisis of pace, infrastructure, and political honesty. When the population grows rapidly while housing is not built, hospitals are overwhelmed, schools lack teachers, and municipalities are underfunded, the culprit is not the Sikh turban, the hijab, the Chinese New Year, or the Ukrainian church. The culprit is a government that opens the doors faster than it builds state capacity.
Anti-multiculturalists confuse two distinct issues: cultural diversity and administrative overload. The former can be an asset; the latter always becomes a crisis. But treating overload with xenophobia is like treating a heart attack with a slogan.
The United Kingdom: A Country Not Dying of Diversity, but of Hypocrisy
The British case is particularly convenient for critics. It features Islamist extremism, right-wing radicalism, ethnic segregation in parts of certain cities, police failures, school conflicts, a crisis of trust in elites, and the trauma of Brexit. Yet, the question is not whether there are too many cultures in Britain. The question is why the British state failed for decades to provide an honest answer to what it means to be British in the 21st century.
In 2011, David Cameron declared in Munich that "state multiculturalism" had failed—a policy that allowed different groups to live parallel lives without building a shared civic space. This was not a rejection of pluralism; it was a critique of a passive model where the state handed out symbolic recognition but failed to build a shared civic contract.
Recent British data presents a sobering picture. In 2025, net migration to the UK fell to 171,000 people, following a peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. Approximately 10.7 million foreign-born individuals reside in the country. Meanwhile, public perception has hardened: in 2026, a study by More in Common revealed that 42 percent of Britons believe Muslims cannot integrate, and nearly a third doubt whether non-white people can be "truly British." At the same time, 85 percent of British Muslims state that they support integration.
These figures do not strike a blow against multiculturalism; they strike a blow against Beauregard’s myth. The main threat to Britain is not just radical minorities. The threat also lies in the fact that a significant portion of the majority is already prepared to deny their fellow citizens a sense of national belonging based on skin color or religion. This is what will happen without multiculturalism if it is replaced by ethnic nationalism: the law will not become stronger; instead, the mob will receive moral permission to decide who belongs and who does not.
Beauregard fears "segregated cultural groups." Yet, right-wing populism also constructs a segregated group—only in the name of the majority. It, too, speaks the language of the tribe rather than the language of the law. It, too, promises protection through exclusion. It, too, erodes the civic nation because it values ancestry over loyalty, skin color over a passport, and suspicion over proof.
The United States: Immigration as a Strength, Fear as an Industry
American history is the ultimate answer to those who view diversity as an artificial ideology. The United States did not become a superpower despite immigration; it became one largely because of it. Irish, Italians, Eastern European Jews, Germans, Poles, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cubans, Iranians, Armenians, Arabs, and people from across Africa—all were initially targets of fear, only to later become integral to the economy, military, universities, businesses, and culture.
According to estimates by the Pew Research Center, in 2025, there were 51.9 million immigrants living in the US, accounting for about 15.4 percent of the nation's population; immigrants made up approximately 19 percent of the labor force. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2025, the unemployment rate for foreign-born individuals was 4.2 percent, compared to 4.3 percent for those born in the US. This is not a picture of civilizational parasitism; it is a picture of labor participation.
Yet, the US also demonstrates the dark side of weak policies: undocumented migration, overwhelmed cities, an asylum crisis, housing pressure, the politicization of the border, and the exploitation of cheap labor by employers. The problem here is not that a person speaks Spanish, Somali, or Arabic at home. The problem is that the state cannot quickly and legally decide who has the right to stay, who must leave, who is permitted to work, who will pay taxes, who will receive a path to citizenship, and who is exploiting the system.
Anti-multiculturalist rhetoric converts administrative chaos into a culture war. This benefits politicians who find it easier to point at an immigrant than to explain housing shortages, zoning failures, expensive healthcare, income inequality, underfunded schools, and corporate reliance on cheap labor.
Multiculturalism does not demand an open border. It demands that a lawful border does not become an ethnic filter.
An Economy Without Immigrants: The Aging West Cannot Serve Itself
Beauregard and his like-minded contemporaries face another undeniable hurdle: demographics. The West is aging much faster than it is willing to admit. Pension systems, healthcare, elderly care, construction, agriculture, transportation, the hospitality sector, universities, and high-tech industries already rely heavily on individuals born outside their borders.
The OECD emphasizes that while the fiscal impact of immigration depends on employment rates and wage levels, immigrants generally do not draw more social benefits than native-born citizens. European reports on demographic aging reveal a stark reality: without an influx of labor, including immigrants, aging economies will face a growing number of retirees supported by a shrinking base of taxpayers. In the EU, there were approximately three working-age individuals for every person over 65 in 2022; by 2045, this ratio is projected to drop to roughly two.
Here, anti-multiculturalists must choose between slogans and spreadsheets. One can close the borders, but one cannot order demographics to grow younger. One can applaud the "return of identity," but who will work in the nursing homes? Who will build the housing? Who will fill the nursing shortages? Who will sustain the universities where foreign students pay premium tuition? Who will launch the startups, transport the cargo, care for the elderly, and fill vacancies in rural regions?
Of course, migration is no silver bullet. It puts pressure on housing, schools, and transportation. It demands careful planning. It can spark cultural friction. However, the economic solution is not to eliminate diversity. The solution lies in selection, language acquisition, professional integration, credential recognition, regional distribution, combating illegal labor, building housing, and severely punishing employers who exploit immigrants as cheap, disposable resources.
Without multiculturalism, Western nations will not become more just. They will simply become more hypocritical: their economies will continue to require immigrants, while their politics will continue to demean them to win votes.
What Genuine Multiculturalism Means: Not a Food Festival, but Civic Discipline
Beauregard’s primary intellectual error lies in his caricatured definition. He describes multiculturalism as the abandonment of shared norms. But that is not multiculturalism; that is communitarian collapse.
A functioning model must consist of five rigid principles.
First: One Law. No culture, religion, diaspora, community, tradition, or historical grievance can stand above criminal and civil law. Child marriages, violence against women, antisemitism, Islamist propaganda, racist attacks, caste discrimination, pressure on dissidents within diasporas, and foreign interference must all be prosecuted without exception and without fear.
Second: A Shared Language of Public Life. Without a common language, there is no trust, no functioning labor market, and no political community. The state has every right to demand language proficiency for citizenship, public sector employment, political participation, and access to certain social opportunities.
Third: Civic Loyalty. A person may preserve the memory of their country of origin, their religion, family culture, and native tongue. But political loyalty regarding security, taxes, the law, and foreign interference must belong solely to the country of citizenship and residence.
Fourth: The Primacy of Individual Rights Over Group Pressure. Multiculturalism does not protect the authority of elders, clans, preachers, or diaspora leaders. It protects the individual within the group—the woman, the child, the dissident, the secular Muslim, the former believer, and the minority within a minority.
Fifth: The Honesty of the Majority. The majority has a right to its cultural memory, symbols, language, and historical continuity. However, it has no right to turn the state into an instrument of ethnic hierarchy. A civic nation must be confident enough not to fear differences, and strong enough not to let those differences destroy the common order.
Why the Alternative is More Dangerous Than the Disease
Beauregard writes of "zombie multiculturalism." Yet, the true political undead of the West is not multiculturalism; it is ethnic nationalism, returning dressed as a defender of democracy.
It promises order, but it delivers suspicion. It promises unity, but it divides citizens into tiers. It promises security, but it replaces policing with the symbolic scapegoating of outsiders. It promises to protect women, yet it frequently uses female safety as a cudgel against minorities while turning a blind eye to domestic abuse within the majority. It promises to fight foreign influence, yet it copies the exact methods of propaganda, demonization, and collective guilt.
If the West abandons multiculturalism as a principle of civic coexistence, the vacuum will be filled by three forces:
First: Racists who will no longer hesitate to declare that citizenship has a skin color.
Second: Extremists within minority groups who will tell their communities, "See, they will never accept you, so integration is pointless."
Third: Foreign powers that will exploit alienated diasporas as geopolitical tools.
This is precisely why multiculturalism is needed not as a sentimental doctrine, but as a mechanism of national security. It binds the individual to the state rather than leaving them at the mercy of a clan, a preacher, a foreign consulate, or a street radical.
The French Paradox: A Republic Without Multiculturalism is Also Cracking
Beauregard contrasts Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism with the French model of equal citizenship. The French Republic was indeed built on the idea that the state recognizes the individual citizen rather than the ethnic group. This is a powerful tradition. Yet, it has not proven to be a cure for the crisis of integration.
France faces the exact same issues: distrust of institutions, segregated suburbs, radicalization, police violence, stalled social mobility, failing schools, a sense of alienation among some youth of immigrant background, and the rise of right-wing populism. In 2026, the OECD recorded a drop in public trust in France’s national government to 22 percent in 2025, compared to an OECD average of around 40 percent. This is not the result of "too much multiculturalism." France has long rejected the Anglo-Saxon approach.
This suggests the root of the problem lies deeper. The crisis is not caused by the recognition of differences in itself. The crisis lies in the social contract. If a youth from the suburbs is formally a citizen but encounters underfunded schools, weak policing, a closed labor market, and discrimination based on their address and surname, only to then hear lectures on Republican equality, they will view the state as a theater. If a member of the majority witnesses crime, parallel societies, and aggressive identity politics, but hears only moralizing from the elites, they too stop believing in the state.
A republic without real integration is just as powerless as multiculturalism without a shared law.
The Error of the Elites and the Error of the Right
Western progressives did indeed make a fundamental mistake. They frequently confused respect for differences with an abandonment of expectations. They feared the word "integration" because they associated it with forced assimilation. Too often, they turned a blind eye to problems within minority communities to avoid arming the political right with talking points. As a result, they handed the right its most powerful weapon: the illusion of holding a forbidden truth.
However, the right makes a mirror-image mistake. They confuse integration with the cultural capitulation of minorities. They speak of the rule of law, but frequently mean hierarchy. They speak of national sentiment, but regularly turn it into an ethnic test. They speak of security, but foster a political climate in which a loyal citizen with the "wrong" surname must constantly prove they are not a threat.
Sound policy begins only when both errors are rejected. Yes, an immigrant must learn the language, respect the law, work, pay taxes, and accept the rules of a civic society. Yes, the state must secure its borders and deport those who have no legal right to stay. Yes, radicalism must be suppressed. Yes, crime must never be concealed out of fear of accusations of racism.
Yet, the majority must also accept a reality: a country in which millions of citizens have diverse origins can no longer be built on ethnic nostalgia. It can only be sustained by a shared civic idea.
Multiculturalism as Maturity, Not Weakness
The future of multiculturalism depends on its maturity. The juvenile version claimed, "Our differences unite us." This is poetic, but insufficient. The mature version must state otherwise: we are not united by our differences, but by the rules that prevent those differences from turning into conflict.
The multiculturalism of the future must be less celebratory and more state-focused. Fewer posters about diversity, more language courses. Less symbolic politics, more municipal budgets. Fewer ethnic intermediaries, more direct engagement with the individual citizen. Less fear of inconvenient data, more precise statistics on crime, education, employment, and discrimination. Less moralizing, more law.
Such a model of multiculturalism is not weaker than the traditional nationalist one. It is stronger because it does not require the state to engage in self-delusion. It acknowledges reality: society is already diverse. The question is not whether one likes this fact or not. The question is who will manage this reality—a democratic state or street radicals.
Beauregard is correct when he asserts that a nation cannot exist without norms and a shared foundation. Yet, his conclusion is dangerous because, under the guise of defending that foundation, he effectively opens the door to a politics of suspicion. The West will not save itself by declaring millions of its own citizens eternal outsiders. It will only accelerate the very collapse it fears.
Multiculturalism is not dead. What has died is the illusion that it can function without the state, without language, without law, without borders, without schools, without policing, without honest statistics, and without requirements placed on every citizen.
The West does not need the abandonment of multiculturalism, but its robust reform. Not a cult of differences, but the discipline of a shared home. Not capitulation to communities, but the protection of the individual. Not ethnic nostalgia, but civic confidence.
If the choice lies between a complex multiculturalism and a simplistic nationalist reflex, a mature state chooses complexity. Simple answers in highly diverse societies almost always end not in unity, but in a search for the scapegoat.