Le Pen: Europe will wake up in 2017 following wind of change
KOBLENZ, Germany: French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen yesterday told a European gathering of right-wing populists in Germany that a string of highstakes elections in 2017 would blow a wind of change across the region.
Emboldened by the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s US presidential victory, the farright National Front leader said voters in France, Germany and the Netherlands would be next to reject the status quo.
“2016 was the year the Anglo-Saxon world woke up. 2017, I am sure, the people of continental Europe will wake up,” she told a cheering crowd at a conference hall in the western river city of Koblenz, on the river Rhine.
“It’s no longer a question of if, but when,” she added in a speech that railed against migration, the euro and open borders.
Billed as a “European counter summit”, the Koblenz gathering is also being attended by Frauke Petry of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), Geert Wilders of the Dutch antiIslam Freedom Party, Harald Vilimsky, secretary-general of
2016 was the year the Anglo-Saxon world woke up. 2017, I am sure, the people of continental Europe will wake up.
— Marine Le Pen, French National Front leader
the Freedom Party of Austria and Matteo Salvini of Italy’s anti-EU Northern League.
The conference comes just a day after the US inauguration of Trump, who assumed power with a staunchly nationalist address in which he vowed to put ‘America first’. The Koblenz participants have repeatedly voiced their admiration for the maverick billionaire, and like him are hoping to shake up the political landscape by capitalising on a tide of anger against the establishment and anxiety over migration.
“Yesterday a new America, today Koblenz and tomorrow a new Europe,” Wilders told the 800-strong crowd in German, to loud applause.
“We are the start of a patriotic spring in Europe,” he added.
The charismatic Dutch MP currently tops polls ahead of March parliamentary elections but observers say he is likely to struggle to find the coalition partners needed to govern.
The Koblenz congress has been organised by the European Parliament’s Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) grouping, which was set up by Le Pen in 2015 and is now home to 40 MEPs from nine member states.
It has been touted as a chance for the parties to highlight their common ground but political analyst Timo Lochocki of the German Marshall Fund said the event was mainly ‘just good PR’ as the parties had little to gain from strengthening ties.
“This is largely to increase media attention,” he told AFP.
“The reasons why people vote for these parties are purely national and are independent from any alleged cross-national cooperation between the farright.”