Flamboyant Dutch populist Thierry Baudet is one to watch in this week’s EU elections
- Political newcomer Thierry Baudet’s nativist, anti-immigration message is similar to the one that has swept Europe from Italy to Hungary
A flamboyant Dutch populist could open the floodgates for a tidal wave of Eurosceptic and anti-immigration parties across the continent in this week’s European Parliament elections.
Classics-quoting climate sceptic Thierry Baudet founded the Forum for Democracy just two years ago, but his party is on course to beat Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals when the Netherlands votes on Thursday.
As the first country in the EU to vote, along with exit-bound Britain, Dutch exit polls will be closely watched as a bellwether of a populist earthquake ahead of official results for the whole EU on Sunday.
“What happens in the Netherlands is also happening elsewhere in Europe,” Claes de Vreese, politics professor at the University of Amsterdam, told said.
Once best known for naked Instagram selfies and controversial comments about women, Baudet, 36, stunned Europe in March when the Forum became the biggest party in the Dutch senate.
In the process he stole votes from Geert Wilders, the bleached-blonde anti-Islam leader who has long dented the Netherlands’ image abroad as a bastion of tolerant liberalism.
Baudet is now aiming for similar success on the European stage, with latest opinion polls showing the Forum snatching as many as five of the 26 European Parliament seats allotted to the Netherlands, similar to Rutte’s ruling VVD.