Violent crime, terror attacks, and epidemic levels of sexual assault in Europe are “not linked” to mass migration, Emmanuel Macron has said, blaming “discrimination” and inequality for the phenomena.

Speaking to George Washington University students in the U.S. last week, the French President also acknowledged that “90 per cent” of African migrants arriving in Europe are economic migrants and not refugees.

Macron was prompted to address the topic after a student stood up to say that Americans have watched as mass immigration “from the Middle East and Africa to Europe … over the years”, resulting in the rise of violence, crime, and terror attacks on the continent.

Highlighting “an increase in sexual assault and rape of women to the point that many women are too afraid to leave home” and “an increase in anti-Semitism to the point that in many cities Jewish citizens are advised not to wear religious garb for fear of being attacked”, she asked the President what his government is doing “to ensure the national security and the cultural identity of France and Europe”.

Can you blame them? https://t.co/mk6sRCbJhI — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 20, 2017

“I am absolutely not naive. In our societies, we have a need for more security, more national security, especially for women,” Macron said, before stating: “I do not believe that these phenomena are linked to migration.”

“Why? Because it is not new and unfortunately we have had this problem for years not to say decades in my country”, he explained, telling students that “exactly the same debates” were taking place in France over national security during the country’s 2002 presidential election campaign.

“Anti-Semitism … Unfortunately we had the [Mohammed] Merah attack and terrorist attack … more than six years ago now,” continued Macron, making reference to the gunman who killed three French paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren, and a rabbi while on a shooting rampage in 2012.

“So it’s not brand new. And it must not be correlated with this immigration. Honestly,” Macron stressed, claiming it is the state’s responsibility “to provide opportunities” in order to reduce “conflicts in our societies” such as the attack by Merah, who was an Islamist of Algerian descent, both in France and the U.S.

A week on and the French authorities have failed to suppress the violence https://t.co/vnzOYwXtXD — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 16, 2017

Europe is to blame for “problems, riots, [and] violence” in suburbs dominated by third world migrants, according to the French head of state, who argued that such situations occur “very often because of the lack of opportunities … because we have failed in our ability to integrate these people”.

According to the French head of state, “When you look at the neighbourhoods where you have problems, riots, violence … it is because we have failed in our ability to integrate these people.

“Their parents came for jobs, sometimes lost those jobs because of the crisis, and we failed, we failed to integrate them and provide opportunities,” he said, insisting this is “something we have to solve through education, labour market reforms, and the transformation of the country”.

“Then we must fight against discrimination,” Macron said, contending: “Because when you are educated and you do not find work … because you come from such a neighbourhood, because of your family name, because of your religion, it is a failure of the whole society,” he contended.

245 per cent https://t.co/2ETAmDhyJo — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2017

In 2009, France actually piloted a scheme in which CVs were anonymous, meaning they omitted information such as candidates’ names, ages, and addresses in a bid to “reduce the opportunity gap” between migrants and natives. However, the scheme was scrapped when the pilot resulted in fewer callbacks for minorities and candidates living in so-called ‘no-go’ zones.

Having recently attracted anger in the globalist Western media over supposedly “harsh” immigration reforms, Macron was also keen to emphasise that he takes a different approach to asylum seekers compared to economic migrants.

“I want my country to welcome the maximum number of people entitled to be accepted, when they are at risk in their country,” he told students.

“Ninety per cent of people coming from Africa are not coming to Europe because of these kinds of political risks — they are coming from economic risks. You cannot accept everybody. That’s not a sustainable burden for French society.”