And it doesn't appear to be a one off remark either. Considering the continuing racial strife that has been fed by those on the right, he really needs to go now. A few years ago there was plenty of talk about forcing change in the stodgy system and yes, Sarkozy's initial cabinet was a step in the right direction. None of real changes proposed during his campaign such as affirmative action ever made it out of the gate and now the cabinet looks like any traditional French cabinet.
The French interior minister Brice Hortefeux, one of Nicolas Sarkozy's closest friends, is at the centre of a race row after he was accused of making apparently insulting jokes about France's large North African community.
In a video on Le Monde's website, Hortefeux is seen bantering with young members of Sarkozy's ruling centre-right UMP party outside a summer conference meeting last weekend. He is posing for a picture with activists including a young man referred to as Amin. A person in the crowd says of Amin: "He eats pork, he drinks beer" and Hortefeux is seen joking: "So he doesn't at all correspond to the prototype." A woman in the crowd shouts: "He's our little Arab". Hortefeux says: "There's always one. When there's one, that's OK. It's when there are a lot of them, that there are problems."
