Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders calls Moroccans ‘scum’

Dutch anti-EU party and populist leader Geert Wilders sparked outrage on Saturday after launching his election campaign with a stinging attack on the country’s Moroccan population calling them “scum” who he said were making the streets unsafe.

The anti-immigration MP urged the Dutch to “regain” their country and said he wanted to make the Netherlands “ours again” as he launched his electoral campaign.

Wilders, 53, was surrounded by police and security guards when he made his remarks during a walkabout in his party’s stronghold of Spijkenisse, part of an ethnically diverse industrial area just south of Rotterdam.

“The Moroccan scum in Holland … once again not all are scum … but there is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland who make the streets unsafe, mostly young people ... and that should change,” he told journalists as he attempted to take a stroll in a market.

“If you want to regain your country, if you want to make the Netherlands for the people of the Netherlands, your own home again, than you can only vote [for the Freedom party],” Wilders said. “Please, make the Netherlands ours again.”

Crime by young Moroccans was not being taken seriously, added Wilders, who in December was convicted of inciting discrimination for leading supporters in a chant that they wanted "Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!" Moroccans in the country.

Wilders, who has lived in hiding since the 2004 murder by an Islamist of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, is hoping a global upsurge in populism will propel him to power in the parliamentary election. His campaign pledges include a ban on Muslim immigration, shuttering all mosques and leaving the European Union.

He has been leading opinion polls for several weeks and his progress is being monitored carefully by politicians who fear European politics is lurching heavily to the right.

The MP, who has also vowed to ban the Qur’an should he be voted into power, was convicted of discrimination in December over previous comments he made about Moroccans living in the Netherlands.

A win for Wilders would boost French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and the Alternative for Germany party, both hoping to transform European politics in elections this year.

"Despite all the hate and fear-mongering of the elite both in Britain and Brussels, people took their fate in their own hands," he said. "I think that will happen in Holland, in France, Austria and in Germany."

Wilders' party leads in opinion polls with 17%, a whisker ahead of the pro-business Liberals of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who has closed the gap by matching some of Wilders' anti-immigration rhetoric and received a boost from a surging economy.

But if he wins, Wilders will struggle to form a government, since most major parties have ruled out joining a coalition with him, viewing his policies as offensive or even unconstitutional.