France could learn from Australia's successful immigration model, the French ambassador to Australia has said.

In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 129 people, Christophe Lecourtier told the ABC's Q&A program that his home country had probably not done enough to include Muslim immigrants in French society.

"Of course 96, 97, 98 per cent (of Muslim migrants) are good people and probably we've not done enough in the past 20 years to fully bring them into the nation," Mr Lecourtier said.

"When I look at Australia I do see that you have been working far better than us in the past 20 years to bring new immigrants into your communities and in that sense Australia is the true model."

The comments followed Mr Lecourtier's assertion that Paris – his hometown - had been attacked because the nation was "at war".

"It's a war because the values that we share, the values that we have been sharing with Australia probably since the First World War are at stake," he told the audience of 1200.

"[The shared values mean] that we want to be able to go out with anybody, to dress as we want, to be in love with any people that we want.

"That's the kind of things these people do not accept, and until the very last moment you can be sure that France will resist that, and we shall never retreat one millimetre from our values."

Three politicians, federal government minister Christopher Pyne, Labor's education spokesperson Kate Ellis and independent senator Nick Xenophon, joined the ambassador for the panel.

Held at Adelaide's Thebarton Theatre, the show was meant to have thoroughly canvassed issues affecting South Australia, but was mostly hijacked with talk of France, Syria and the Middle East.

Panellists had similar opinions on most topics raised throughout evening, including that "moderate" or "real" Muslims should be supported by the Australian community.

Mr Pyne said Australia must not let extremist and militant Islamists represent the Islamic faith.

"Moderate Muslims need to be embraced in Australia or elsewhere. Moderate Muslim governments need to be embraced, wherever they might be, because they have at much at stake as we do in defeating extremists," he said.