by WorldTribune Staff, November 13, 2016
Anti-globalism forces are on a roll and leaders of such movements in Europe are looking to ride the wave of momentum created by Donald Trump to a revolutionary new order.
Trump’s victory is “the emergence of a new world,” said Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front. “It’s the end of the 20th century.”
From Brexit, to the Balkans to the Netherlands, supporters of heightened nationalism and anti-globalization have been looking to change the political landscape. Trump’s victory is a watershed moment for the movement.
“It shows that when the people really want something, they can get it,” Le Pen said in an interview on Nov. 11. “When the people want to retake their destiny in hand, they can do it, despite this ceaseless campaign of denigration and infantilization”
“A historic victory! A revolution!” Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands said of Trump’s victory, adding it was a hopeful sign for his Dutch party’s own aspirations.
“We are witnessing the same uprising on both sides of the Atlantic,” Wilders said. “We will return our country to the Dutch.”
Populist leaders who have mounted challenges to longstanding political orders were also ecstatic over Trump’s victory.
One such leader, Beppe Grillo of the Five Star Movement in Italy,” said his party’s opponents “called us sexists, homophobes, demagogues and populists. They don’t realize that millions of people already no longer read their newspapers and no longer watch their television.”
Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the Freedom Party of Austria, and a serious contender to win the country’s presidency on Dec. 4, said “the left and the corrupt establishment, which considers itself so superior, are being punished blow by blow by the voters and voted out of various positions of responsibility.”
Steeve Briois, the National Front mayor of Hénin-Beaumont in France, said in a speech on Nov. 12 that “France is no longer France,” echoing the line Trump used after the terrorist attack in Nice in July.
Briois said later he was aware that Trump had spoken those words, and he agreed with them.
“There is the same desire to change politics in France,” Briois said. As in the United States, he added, “a lot of French are victims of globalization and immigration.”
“So, we’ve got to change our politics,” he said. “And the only one who can do it is Marine Le Pen.”
Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders surf the anti-globalist wave after Brexit, Trump victory added by World Tribune on
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