Merkel: Multicuturalism has failed

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that multiculturalism in Germany has "utterly failed."

Merkel made the statement whlst addressing a national meeting of the youth wing of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, the Junge Union, in Potsdam.

She said the multicultural approach, where people live "side by side, happy about each other" had failed in Germany and that all immigrants must learn German if they're seeking to integrate.

Merkel said that the demand for integration was a main task for the near future, insisting that Germany was "a country that gives the people in our country a chance, this must always remain a hallmark of Germany."

Merkel was speaking a week after holding talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which they pledged to do more to improve the poor integration record of Germany's 2.5 million-strong Turkish community.

Her comments to the Junge Union in part echoed comments made at the same party meeting on Friday by Horst Seehofer, who is head of the CSU (Christian Social Union), the Bavarian sister party of the CDU.

Seehofer, said the CDU and the CSU were "committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one," declaring multiculturalism dead.