Most Germans see Muslims as a burden

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More than half of Germans see Muslim immigrants as a drag on the country, a poll published Thursday has found.

According to the Allensbach poll commissioned by the Financial Times Deutschland, 55 percent judged that the migrant group “has cost significantly more financially and socially than it has yielded economically.”

Only one fifth of respondents believed Muslim immigrants were more a benefit than a burden. The skepticism is particularly strong in the former east of the country, where 74 percent of respondents saw Muslims as a drain on the nation. In the former west, the figure was 50 percent.

Furthermore, more than one third of the population believes Germany is indeed becoming “dumber on average” because of immigration, as former Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin has controversially claimed. Migrants were poorly educated and had more children, many respondents said. In the former east, 37 percent of people believed this to be the case, compared with 33 percent who rejected the proposition.

Sarrazin, who sparked a tumultuous debate about immigration last month – and lost his job in the process – has claimed among other things that many Muslims do not want to integrate with German society and, on the whole, make the country dumber.

Some 60 percent of respondents to the poll believed Sarrazin was generally right, while just 13 percent rejected his theses altogether.