New Hope for Europe?

After decades of rule by corporate-backed multiculturalist elites, the people of Europe are turning to new political movements that defend the cultural and linguistic traditions of the European peoples from the Third World migrations that threaten to engulf the Western world.

All across Europe, political parties calling for restrictions on immigration and opposition to the globalist building-blocks of supra-national government like the European Union are gaining popular support and moving to the center of public attention. Frightened by the prospect of genuine political change and an open debate that challenges their commercialist, multicultural ideology, nervous elites have launched an all-out effort to demonize the new parties and their leaders as "Nazis" and "fascists," the ultimate slurs in a democratic society.

In the last two years, elections in Austria, Italy, Denmark and Norway have already shown a modest turn against the reigning left-wing political elites who achieved power in the '80's and 90's. But now, as immigration worsens and European communities are overrun by crime-prone foreign populations seeking handouts from the West in the form of housing, welfare, and free health care, voters are looking for leaders who care about national sovereignty and security for European families.

In Austria, the Freedom Party of Jorg Haider joined the coalition government in 2000, even though Haider was denounced as a "Nazi" because he supported restrictions on immigration. In Denmark, the Progress Party holds 22 seats in the 179-seat parliament, and has called for expelling illegal aliens. In Italy, the National Alliance and Northern League, both of which support immigration restrictions, have increased their percentage of the vote, and the former is a member of the ruling coalition. In Norway, the restrictionist Party of Progress won 25 seats in the 165-seat parliament last September, and in the Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn's List, opposed to Muslim immigration, is now the country's second-largest party. In Britain, the valiant British National Party for the first time won three city council seats.

Some of the most dramatic recent popular gains were made in France by the National Front and its presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, an immigration restrictionist and opponent of the budding supra-national government, the European Union, headquartered in Brussels. In preliminary presidential balloting in April, Le Pen's campaign to limit immigration, oppose globalism, and crack down on crime knocked socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the presidential race altogether, earning Le Pen the right to face the incumbent president, multiculturalist conservative Jacques Chirac in the final round.

"A new hope is born in France," said Le Pen at a victory rally. "I call on all patriots to oppose the technocratic Europe of Brussels and create a true popular force to defend national independence and oppose globalization."

Pierre Legaud, a resident of Saint-Cloud and a veteran of France's involvement in Indochina, spoke for millions of Le Pen's supporters. "It's about time," he said. "For once, the French have voted with courage."

Le Pen's victory virtually ruined the Communist Party's hopes of electoral success, and drove socialist Jospin to announce his retirement from politics altogether.

His stunning win was driven not just by immigration, by also in part by the gun control issue. Just one week before the election, Prime Minister Jospin had announced he would implement tougher new gun control measures in a country where gun buyers must already get police permission. They must apply for an owner's license by submitting medical records, and undergo an oral interview and extensive background check. Le Pen denounced Jospin's new regulations that would have banned the right to own certain handguns, decrying them as an attack on the right to self-defense.

"Many handgun owners are going to be affected by this law, which of course is part of the process of depriving the French of their natural right to legitimate defense at a time when crime has never been as high in the country," said Le Pen.

The news of Le Pen's successful bid to enter the run-off sent shock waves through the capitals of Europe. Ruling elites swiftly adopted an unprecedented campaign of hate and vilification to delegitimize Le Pen and other candidates like him. Using the rhetoric of the Communists, elites denounced Le Pen as a "Nazi," and a "fascist," while the corporate press tried to link Le Pen to militarism, always referring to him as an "ex-paratrooper," even though the 73 year-old retired businessman hasn't been in the army for more than 50 years.

Communist and immigrant supporters of conservative standard-bearer Chirac staged massive street demonstrations against Le Pen where they battled riot police in several cities. According to Associated Press, demonstrators against Le Pen in Paris "held up posters of Martin Luther King, with the caption, 'Don't Break His Dream.'" One Parisian protester, Abdoul Fofana, threatened war if Le Pen became president.

"If Le Pen wins, there will be a world war in France," said Fofana, a native of Africa's Ivory Coast.

Although Le Pen lost decisively to Chirac in the final vote, he won 1 million more votes in the last round than he earned in earlier balloting, his best election showing so far, despite the massive hate campaign in the European press that warned of the end of democracy and the start of a new dark ages. The Economist denounced Le Pen as "disgusting," and "a shame."

The hate campaign enjoyed limited success against Le Pen, but it succeeded dramatically in the Netherlands where the flamboyant and popular immigration opponent Pim Fortuyn was denounced by government ministers as "a dangerous man." Fortuyn, the standard-bearer for Dutch citizens fed up with a crime wave launched by Third World immigrants, was murdered by an assassin who fired five shots to his head as he left a radio station after an interview. Tens of thousands of Dutch men, women and children turned out to show their grief by displaying flowers at the slain leader's home.

The suspected killer, arrested by Dutch police shortly after Fortuyn's murder, is a left-wing radical with a long history of involvement in extremist political activity.

The leader of Italy's Northern League blamed Fortuyn's killing on the climate of hate and demonization created by left-wingers and multicultural elites. The murder "fits into a climate that the left has been and is spreading across Europe, thanks to the influence of mass media - the urge to demonize everything new, closer to the people's interests," said Umberto Bossi. "It's so true that what people think scares the establishment."

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair had urged citizens to take direct action against candidates throughout Europe who advocated restrictions on immigration.

"I think it is vitally important that people who believe in democracy, who loathe those policies of racism and narrow-minded nationalism, fight it at every level," he said.

Danish nationalist leader Pia Kjaersgaard called Fortuyn's murder the direct result of a "smear campaign thoroughly planned and controlled by the media and the political establishment."

Belgian nationalist leader Frank Vanhecke agreed. "The attack was only possible in an increasing frictional climate for anyone who is willing to question political correctness."

Analysts say the parties of Europe opposed to continued mass immigration are showing increasing strength because elites have concentrated too much on imposing their own ideology on the countries they rule, and ignoring the wishes of ordinary voters who do not necessarily share the elite's views.

"The problems of immigration and minority criminality have been ignored too long," says Hans Wansink of the liberal Dutch daily De Volkskrant.

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