FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: French Republic must make room for Islam.

In a speech on terrorism and democracy in Paris he defended the country’s Muslim minority following a vitriolic debate on the banning of the Islamic burkini swimsuit.

“Nothing in the idea of secularism opposes the practice of Islam in France, provided it respects the law,” Hollande said.

Secularism was not a “state religion” to be used against other religions, he said, denouncing the “stigmatisation of Muslims.”

The problem isn’t that France hasn’t made room for Islam. There’s been room for it in France’s “sensitive urban zones,” where Muslims have lived unassimilated for generations. And France has made more room for Islam in the form of tens of thousands of migrants from North Africa and the Levant. That hasn’t been going very well, either, as France’s Muslim guests have created new cultural and criminal tensions with native Secular/Catholic/Jewish French citizens.

The real problem then is the still-open question of whether there’s room for the French in Islam.