Politics

After the US, far right says 2017 will be the year Europe wakes up

France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called on voters across Europe to “wake up” and follow the example of US and British voters.

Speaking at an unprecedented meeting in Germany of Europe’s rightwing populist parties, she said Brexit would unleash an unstoppable wave of “all the dominoes of Europe”. And after Brexit, she added, before an audience of several hundred, the election of Donald Trump was a “second coup”.

“His position on Europe is clear. He does not support a system of the oppression of peoples,” she said, to enthusiastic applause. “2016 was the year the Anglo-Saxon world woke up. I am certain 2017 will be the year when the people of continental Europe wake up.”