I'd heard that in passing, but in trying to research it, the best I can find is that studies of xenophobia are all over the map and completely contradictory:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rPNS83u...

The only thing anyone seems to agree on is that the French really hate foreign workers.

That said, I hope you turn out to be right, and the populist/nativist zeitgeist burns itself out.

I think basing this around countries is too fuzzy.

If you look at Germany it's pretty evident:

At a glance it seems that East Germans are more xenophobic/racist than West Germans. But that's only half the story. Once you look at population densities you quickly see that xenophobia is most widespread in the areas with the least dense population. But even then you can see a clear trend that absence of "foreigners" correlates with a higher level of xenophobia.

There may be a limit to this effect (e.g. I'm not sure what the numbers look like for areas with a "foreign" majority) but anecdotally people seem to be less xenophobic the more they are exposed to "foreigners" (usually with the cliché stopgap "obviously you're okay, but those other foreigners...").

Anecdotally in Germany there's also a phenomenon where Eastern European immigrants are more xenophobic/racist towards other immigrants than native Germans are. This may have to do with "Russland-Deutsche" historically seeing themselves as ethnic Germans rather than immigrants. As a counterpoint, the Iranian spree killer in Munich this year also was a xenophobe who considered himself German.

People may just be terrible at assessing percentages. If they mentally round down <10% to "does not happen" then conversely even low fractions will still lead to a reported >10% perception. Maybe the questions should be phrased as X out of 5, i.e. 20% increments. Or even more accurately 0-1 out of 5, 1-2 out of 5, etc.

Also, an anti-immigration stance may just be isolationism, not necessarily racism. Fear of "the other" is more general than just race.