"his remark reflected the French disinclination to fully absorb "foreigners."
How long have there been jews in France and they are still considered something less than french? The European disease is returning.
You might be interested in "Peasants into Frenchmen", by Eugene Weber.
Weber explains that there really were no proper "frenchmen", citizens for whom France was the first and strongest identity, much before WW1. Weber argues that modern France is really more like an imperial power, an empire started by Napoleon's Paris and that slowly and steadily conquered the countryside culturally, economically, and linguistically.