‘Be normal or be gone,’ Dutch PM warns
AMSTERDAM • Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte shifted sharply to the right Monday, publishing a fullpage newspaper advertisement warning immigrants to “be normal or be gone” as the Netherlands gears up for a bitter election fight over national identity.
Rutte, the leader of the Liberal party (VVD), made the move as he fended off pressure from the rising popularity of Geert Wilders, whose hard-right Party for Freedom (PVV) has made anti-immigrant, anti-Islam politics its trademark.
The tough new Rutte campaign message appeared in ads in several leading newspapers and an interview in the tabloid, Algemeen Dagblad, adding that people who come to the Netherlands for freedom but then “reject our values” should leave.
The message and the layout of the advertisement was widely seen as mirroring the approach of Wilders.
It criticizes immigrants who “abuse our freedom to spoil things — bothering gay men, harassing women in short skirts or just saying regular Dutch people are racists.” The advertisement adds: “Be normal, or Be gone.”
Anita Hendriks, a pro-Wilders party activist, compared the two advertisements side by side, accusing Rutte of a naked attempt to undercut their party: “Not stolen enough yet, Mark?” she tweeted.
Rutte unveiled the new strategy as Francois Fillon, the conservative front-runner in the French presidential race, rejected the “open door” policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel after talks in Berlin Monday.
“My position is clear. France cannot accept more refugees. The right of asylum is not migration chaos,” Fillon tweeted, as he attempted to outflank his own hard-right opponent, Front National leader Marine Le Pen.
After a string of terrorist attacks, immigration is also a key issue in the campaign for the French election this spring, with Fillon expected to face Le Pen in a secondround run off for the presidency.
The Netherlands goes to the polls on March 15, and support has remained high for Wilders, despite his recent criminal conviction for insulting Moroccans and inciting racial hatred.
Wilders’s party has a onepage manifesto promising to close all mosques, ban the Koran and close borders to asylum seekers.
He mocked Rutte for his attempts to “deceive” the Dutch electorate. “The man of open borders, asylum tsunami, mass immigration, Islamization, lies and deceit,” he tweeted.
Although Wilders is ahead in the polls — winning 33 seats in the Netherlands’ 150-seat parliament, compared with 24 for Rutte — he is not close to winning an outright governing majority.