KOBLENZ, Germany \u2014 French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen declared Saturday that 2017 will be the \u00ab\u00a0year of the awakening of the people of continental Europe\u00a0\u00bb as she joined fellow nationalist leaders in Germany at the beginning of a year of high-stakes national elections.
The mood was celebratory a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as U. S. president, following a campaign buoyed by anti-establishment and protectionist themes.
\u00ab\u00a0Yesterday, a new America. Today, hello Koblenz, a new Europe! \u00a0\u00bb Dutch anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders said as he opened his speech at a congress center on the banks of the Rhine river, under heavy security.
\u00ab\u00a0The people of the west are awakening. They are throwing off the yoke of political correctness,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0This year will be the year of the people… the year of liberation, the year of the patriotic spring. \u00a0\u00bb
Wilders’ anti-Islam Party of Freedom could win the largest percentage of votes in the March 15 Dutch parliamentary election, though it is shunned by rivals and highly unlikely to be able to form a coalition. Le Pen is among top contenders in France’s April-May presidential vote. In September, Frauke Petry’s four-year-old Alternative for Germany party hopes to enter the German parliament.
The meeting of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group in the European Parliament also featured Matteo Salvini of Italy’s Northern League and Harald Vilimsky, the general secretary of Austria’s Freedom Party, which last year narrowly failed to win the country’s presidency.
\u00ab\u00a0We are experiencing the end of one world and the birth of another,\u00a0\u00bb Le Pen said. \u00ab\u00a0We are experiencing the return of nation-states. \u00a0\u00bb
The first \u00ab\u00a0real blow to the old order\u00a0\u00bb was last June’s British vote to leave the European Union, she said \u2014 followed closely by Trump’s election. The new U. S. president, she said, \u00ab\u00a0will not support a system of oppression\u00a0\u00bb in Europe.
Last year saw the awakening of Anglo-Saxon countries, she said, and \u00ab\u00a02017, I am sure, will be the year of the awakening of the people of continental Europe. \u00a0\u00bb
She denounced the EU as \u00ab\u00a0a force of sterilization,\u00a0\u00bb and assailed German Chancellor Angela Merkel \u2014 whose name was booed loudly \u2014 for allowing in large numbers of migrants.
\u00ab\u00a0Everyone sees that this migration policy is a daily disaster,\u00a0\u00bb Le Pen said.
Left-wing protesters staged a sit-in outside the hall shouting slogans like \u00ab\u00a0no border, no nation, stop deportation. \u00a0\u00bb
Not far away, demonstrators from the global AVAAZ activist group placed statues of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Josef Stalin, among others, in front of a landmark statue of German Kaiser Wilhelm.
AVAAZ organizer Pascal Vollenweider said the statues of the dictators were meant to send a \u00ab\u00a0strong message\u00a0\u00bb to the nationalist politicians meeting that \u00ab\u00a0global citizens are rejecting their old dangerous ideas. \u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0They are not fascists in jackboots, it’s a different type of fascism, of course, but if you look at the ideas… it’s very dangerous, and we have to face it: these guys are carrying old, dangerous fascist ideas,\u00a0\u00bb he said.
Marcus Pretzell, Alternative for Germany’s European lawmaker and Petry’s husband, denied accreditation to German public broadcasters and several other German outlets. Public broadcaster ARD has said it was refused access for \u00ab\u00a0not meeting journalistic standards in its past reporting on the party,\u00a0\u00bb a claim it has rejected.
Pretzell opened the congress lamenting the current state of the EU, its passport-free travel zone and the euro. He praised Trump’s opposition to trade agreements such as a planned EU-U. S. trade deal, and said that \u00ab\u00a0we have a problem with political Islam. \u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0Who would still want to become a member of the European Union of their own free will? \u00a0\u00bb he asked.
\u00ab\u00a0We have to turn back some steps that have gone too far,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0The solution is sitting in this room. \u00ab\u00a0<\/p>\n

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