Dutch Youth Back Far-right Immigration Policy

The Netherlands' image as a tolerant and liberal society has been dealt a blow by a new opinion poll which shows that almost one in two young Dutch voters favours zero Muslim immigration, and more than a third plan to vote for an openly racist far-right politician in this year's general election.

Forty-six per cent of the 18- to 30-year-olds polled favoured zero Muslim immigration, while 36% of the young women and 46% of young men questioned said that they planned to vote for the controversial far-right politician Pim Fortuyn. The poll was carried out by a Dutch weekly, Nieuwe Revu.

About 800,000 Muslims live in the Netherlands, Europe's most densely populated country, making up about 5% of the population. Most of them originate in Turkey or Morocco and reside in large cities such as Amsterdam or Rotterdam.

But a general election in May will see a credible far-right movement challenge the old order for the first time. Mr Fortuyn, 54, is standing as a candidate for parliament and has made no secret of his desire to become prime minister.

Earlier this month Mr Fortuyn was sacked as leader of the Leefbaar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands) party after giving an explosive interview to a Dutch newspaper which shocked even his own followers. He has since made it clear that he will be putting together his own slate of candidates and recent opinion polls have shown that he and his old party could together win 36 of the Dutch lower house's 150 seats.

In the offending interview in De Volkskrant, Mr Fortuyn, the author of Against the Islamisation of our Culture and a former academic and television talk show personality, said: "I think 16m Dutchmen are about enough," when asked about immigration. "This is a full country." If he were in power, he said, he would cut the number of annual immigrants and asylum seekers from 40,000 to 10,000 "in no time at all", and would close the borders.

Islam, he claimed, was "a backward culture" and Muslims allowed into the Netherlands looked down on the Dutch. "Moroccan boys never steal from Moroccans. Have you noticed that?" he said.

But it was his call for a key anti-discrimination clause to be removed from the Dutch constitution that caused the most offence.

Mr Fortuyn, who is openly gay, took over the leadership of the Leefbaar Nederland party in August last year, treating his followers to a military-style salute after his acceptance speech.

Under his charismatic leadership the party, which wants to slash bureaucracy, cut taxes and beef up the police, has grown to become the Netherlands' largest new political movement in the past 35 years. The subject of immigration, long taboo, suddenly became an acceptable topic for political debate and Mr Fortuyn, a relative unknown, became a household name.

Commentators in neighbouring Belgium, where the far-right Vlaams Blok has made embarrassing electoral gains in the recent past, are watching Mr Fortuyn's political trajectory with unease.

"Whether you like it or not," Peter Vandermeersch wrote in De Standaard, "Fortuyn's opinions are shared by a broad section of the population. Should we then enter into a debate on the themes raised by Fortuyn? Yes, of course. It would be too simple to stigmatise Fortuyn."