Nigel Farage has declared that promoting multiculturalism in European countries by political elites through uncontrolled immigration has proven to be a huge mistake.

Against the backdrop of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack this week in Paris, preserving a secular culture of openness, tolerance, and free speech — which have become hallmarks of western nations — is crucial, he suggested.

The leader of the populist UK Independence Party (UKIP or Ukip) and a member of the European parliament, Farage made these remarks on the Fox News Channel (see embed below) in connection with the Charlie Hebdo attack but before the four hostages were tragically killed at the Kosher grocery in Paris.

Last May, Ukip won the most seats for Britain’s representation in the European Parliament, the first time in about 100 years that a third party won a national election in England.

Ukip wants to reassert the sovereignty of Britain by exiting the European Union via referendum and leaving behind all its assorted heavy-handed regulations, and also, among other things, to put controls on massive immigration into the U.K., which has come from third-world countries, as well as from eastern Europe as a result of EU decrees.

In the run-up to the May 2015 parliamentary elections in Britain, Ukip faces opposition from the left (the Labor Party) and right (the Conservative Party) in that country as well as what we would call here the mainstream media.

The U.K. domestically is currently governed in the House of Commons by a coalition of Conservatives/Tories and the rapidly fading and soon-to-be-irrelevant Liberal Democrats under Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. The conservatives failed to gain enough seats in the 2010 election to form a majority government on their own.

Given their lost, none-of-the-above, market share with the British electorate, it appears unlikely that either the Tories or Labor will obtain a majority in parliament in the upcoming general election, which could make Ukip — which already has two seats in Parliament via special election wins and takes votes from disaffected Conservative and Labor voters — the kingmakers in forging a governing coalition in Westminster.

Weighing in the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Farage told FNC’s Neil Cavuto that the lack of assimilation has created societal instability across the European continent.

“We have to recognize the mistakes of the past. Let’s be frank and honest about this. We now have within many European countries, and dare I say it, within the USA too, a fifth column living within our own countries, people, mercifully few in number, but people who are out to destroy a whole civilization and our way of life… the implications on free speech and democracy are very serious.”

Some Labor leaders have previously admitted making a big mistake in opening the door to huge waves of third-world immigration for political reasons when they ran the U.K. government under former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In Paris, many Muslims live in enclaves where unemployment is rampant in part owing to discrimination against them by the larger society, London’s Daily Mail reports.

According to the Washington Times, “The problem is a lot of these younger-generation Muslims are not integrating into French society. Although they are French citizens, they don’t really have a future in French society. They feel very alienated from France. This is why radical Islam is so attractive because it gives them a sense of meaning in their life,” claimed Soeren Kern of the Gatestone Institute think tank.

Moreover, because of rising anti-Semitism, thousands of Jews have left France for Israel and other countries.

“We have been warning the French authorities for years — there have been many attacks on French Jews by Islamists,” said a Jewish resident of Paris quoted by USA TODAY. “But they didn’t want to take this poison of extremism seriously or admit to the Islamist threat.”

Nigel Farage added the following in the Cavuto interview.

“So let’s recognize the mistakes we’ve made. Uncontrolled immigration, just not knowing in many cases who the people were who are coming into our country… the biggest mistake the governments have made, we have promoted multiculturalism. We have promoted division within our societies. We have said to large numbers of people, ‘you can come here from any part of the world. Oh, and by the way, please don’t bother to learn our language, don’t integrate in any way at all. You can take over whole parts of our towns and cities, and we’ll say it’s made us a wonderful diverse nation.’ That hasn’t worked. So learn those mistakes from the past…”

Citing the Rotherham scandal, in which about 1,400 young girls were raped in northern Britain by men of Pakistani origin, Farage noted that authorities were reluctant to investigate the crimes for fears of being labeled racist.

The totality of Farage’s comments in the FNC interview were made in the context of radical Islam. He described the vast majority of Muslims living in Britain, France, Germany, and America as “law-abiding and peaceable, and really good human beings who we’d be happy to have as our friends and our next-door neighbors.”

Stirring up hatred against Muslims “would be a terrible, terrible mistake,” he reaffirmed.

Do you think that Nigel Farage’s opinion on multiculturalism is well founded or not?

[image credit: Euro Realist Newsletter]