Tagged: Marine Le Pen

December 19th, 2017 Breaking News

Populist leaders: EU ‘existential threat’ to Europe, ‘Drowning it in migrants to destroy our diversity’

(BREITBART) — by Virginia Hale

Populist leaders meeting in Prague this weekend said the EU is “killing Europe”, as they agreed to work on building an alternative model of cooperation that respects the continent’s peoples and cultures.

Marine Le Pen of France’s Front National and Dutch Islam critic Geert Wilders were among the populist politicians who met in the Czech capital to discuss their continent’s future at a conference entitled ‘For a Europe of Sovereign Nations”.

The Party for Freedom (PVV) firebrand fingered mass migration and “Islamization” as the top threats to Europe, and asserted that the Netherlands would be safer and more prosperous outside the EU, according to the Associated Press.

Pointing to demographic projections of Islam in Europe highlighted earlier this month by a Pew Report — which, writing in Breitbart London, he described as a “catastrophe in the making” — Wilders congratulated the Czech Republic for refusing to bow down to Brussels’ demand that third world migrants be spread throughout the bloc.

“In 30 or 50 years’ time, the Czech Republic will be surrounded by countries where 20 percent of the population will be Muslim,” he said.

“That is as if the Czech Republic became a Gaza Strip. We need to prevent mass migration even if it means building a wall.”

The Dutch populist praised U.S. President Donald J. Trump for moving to “restrict legal immigration instead of expanding it”, and urged Europe to call forth the “courage” to “introduce travel bans” and “repatriate the illegal immigrants”.

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November 13th, 2016 Breaking News

Paris marks first anniversary of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed 130

(SUN) — PARIS — It’s hard to pin down just where the city falls in the five stages of grief a year after the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people.

The country continues to shuffle between bargaining, depression and anger in a year punctuated by rising racial tensions, a major economic hit, and another deadly attack.

So the new normal in Paris serves as a subliminal but constant reminder that we are still officially under a state of emergency.

It’s now normal to come across groups of armed military soldiers patrolling the city streets, striking a jarring contrast against the picturesque, elegant Parisian backdrop.

It’s now normal to be subject to bag checks when entering department stores, some grocery stores, museums, and major public events.

And it’s now normal for subway commuters to be a little more patient with the frequent delays caused by precautionary investigations into suspicious packages.

Anna Escu, 25, recounts an anecdote about how she and a friend were having a drink on an outdoor terrace a few weeks ago, when suddenly a thunderously loud rumble pierced the air.

“Everyone on the terrace just panicked because it sounded like gunfire,” she said.

It turned out to be a man dragging a large garbage bin down the stairs.

“We would never have reacted like that two years ago.” Escu also admits to adopting new habits, including avoiding large crowds and refraining from using her smartphone on the streets. “I’m more vigilant and observant than before, especially in places like train stations and airports.”

But beyond the small inconveniences the locals have been quick to accept, the events of Nov. 13, 2015 have also blown the lid off a bubbling cauldron of race-related tensions in France that extend beyond Islamophobic sentiments.

In the days immediately following the deadly attacks, the number of Muslim-related hate crimes shot up around the country. The same pattern emerged following the attack in Nice on Bastille Day which killed 86 people.

When the controversy over the burkini ban broke out this summer it divided the nation, with proponents and opponents on both sides making heated arguments.

And the dismantling of migrant camps in Calais and Paris in recent weeks and the relocation of migrants and refugees to different parts of France prompted whole villages to protest their arrival.

It’s this wave of racist and anti-immigrant sentiment that Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN), the country’s far-right party, hopes will materialize into France’s own version of Brexit and the U.S. election when the French head to the polls next spring.

Because Donald Trump’s victory delivered a boost for Le Pen, whose political narrative mirrors that of the new president-elect: a rebellion against the elite, champion of the white, working middle class, suppression of immigration in France, and change.

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