re: Can a single leftist explain how multiculturalism is supposed to work?

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They weren't small linguistic differences at all. In the 19th century, you could go from a part of France to another and not speak the same language. Different parts of France had completely different cultures in the 19th century (they weren't just sub-cultures but different cultures developed because of large differences in language).

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Can you give any examples?

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Alsatians and Bretons, as just two examples.

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Abbe Gregoire identified some 30 different patois, dialects and languages that were spoken within the borders of France at the time of the French Revolution, these include Bas-Breton, Bourguignon, Bressan, Lyonnais, Dauphinois, Auvergnat, Poitevin, Limousin, Picard, Provencal, Languedocien, Valayen, Bearnais, Roergat and Gascon. Among the largest groups of the non-Francophone population were the approximately one million Breton-speakers, one million German speakers, 100,000 Basque-speakers, 100,000 Catalan speakers, as well as those speaking Flemish and Italian. In fact, only a sixth of the departments around Paris were exclusively French speaking.

In the Christmas carols of the Midi, the angels spoke French, but the shepherds answered in Provencal. In Perpignan, priests were still preaching in Catalan in the 1870s. An observer from Gascon-speaking Lot-et-Garonne pointed out that "the reading out of [Revolutionary] decress bores [the populace] - this is because they do not understand a word, even though the decrees are read in a loud and clear voice and are explained." In 1864 the minister of Education found that in 18 French departments 60% of the population did not speak French.

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Before the Revolution, France was an empire comprised of VERY different peoples. It was the Revolution that converted France into a unified country (or nation-state), though that conversion took the better part of a century to complete.