It's worse than political correctness. It's soviet era isolation of political opponents with a public profile.
You have to feel sorry for the French though. A succession of governments, beginning with De Gaulle, made it possible for their country to be flooded with muslims from North Africa. So now they form such a substantial percentage of the population - some experts contradict public statistics and say it's at the tipping point 16% - that no centre left or centre right government is willing to offend them.
