Echoing one of Sarkozy’s favored themes, Gueant said immigrants must better integrate.

“We reject … cloistered lives lived along ethnic and religious grounds, those that live by their own laws,” Gueant told reporters. “The foreigners that we welcome here must integrate themselves. It is up to them to adapt to us, not the other way around.”

The comment was in part a reference to France’s ban on Islamic face veils, a 2010 law that supporters said defended women’s freedoms and that critics said stigmatized millions of moderate Muslims.