Financial Times/Latimes.com: Poll: British more wary of Muslims than people on continental Europe- by Daniel Dombey and Simon Kuper

For the complete report from the Financial Times/Los Angeles Times click on this link

Poll: British more wary of Muslims than people on continental Europe- by Daniel Dombey and Simon Kuper

Britons are more suspicious of Muslims than are people on continental Europe and the U.S., according to a new poll for the Financial Times conducted by Harris Interactive.

France emerged from the poll as the country most at ease with its Muslim population. Only about a fifth of French people said the presence of Muslims threatened national security or that Muslims had too much political power, the lowest proportion of any country polled. The French were the people most likely to say they personally had Muslim friends, to agree that one could be both Muslim and a citizen of their country, to accept their child wanting to marry a Muslim, and to say that Muslims in their country had received unjustified criticism and prejudice.

Patrick Weil, political scientist at the Sorbonne in Paris, said: "In France we are very good at cultural integration, making people feel members of the same community. We are very bad in fighting discrimination, especially in high-level jobs. In the U.K. it is the opposite."