17th December 2017

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: European Far-Right Leaders Decry EU, Mass Immigration

Right-wing leaders from several European countries have met in the Czech capital, Prague, to criticize the European Union and what they call a policy of "mass immigration," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty writes.

The December 16 conference of the right-wing Europe of Nations and Freedoms (MENL) group in the European Parliament was attended by Marine Le Pen of France, Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and other rightist leaders.

"Brussels is an existential threat to our nation-states," Wilders said in criticism of the EU. He added that he hoped "Czechs will keep their doors firmly shut to mass migration."

The meeting was hosted by the Czech Republic's Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, which won nearly 11 percent of the vote in Czech parliamentary elections in October based on an anti-Islam and anti-immigrant platform.

...

"I like the fact that the Dutch are Dutch, that the Czechs are Czech, that the French are French, and that the Italians are Italian," Le Pen said, while sitting next to far-right SPD leader Tomio Okamura, whose father is Japanese.

"We want a Europe which respects national individuality, national identity, and freedom," Okamura said.

A group of some 200 protesters rallied outside the conference, which was held at a hotel on Prague's outskirts.

"We want to show that the Czech Republic is not indifferent to the manifestations of hatred, the spread of disinformation, which the SPD is committing," protest organizer Jan Cemper said.

 

Full story is available here. Watch a video.

Members of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic