French racism

""There always has to be one. When there's one, it's OK. It's when there are a lot of them that there are problems." These words spoken by France's interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, were caught on camera last week during the ruling UMP party’s summer gathering in Seignosse in south-west France. The comments appear to be in reference to a young UMP member of Algerian origin, and they have spurred a growing controversy. After the footage was published on the website of French newspaper Le Monde, the minister quickly countered that he had made "no reference to any ethnic origin, be it North African, Arab, African or other.” Confronted by reporters on Thursday evening, Brice Hortefeux said he was in fact replying to people who wanted to take pictures of him. “I was in a hurry to leave," the minister said, adding that there had been some jokes about his own origins from the Auvergne region in central France." (thanks Hadjar)