Vice President JD Vance Tells Britons Protesting Against Mass Migration ‘It’s OK to Want to Defend’ Your Country

Wikimedia Commons, JD Vance, PD US Government

U.S. Vice President JD Vance encouraged the British public protesting against the longstanding government policy of flooding the jobs market with mass migration to “just keep going” and remember “it’s OK” to want to live in a safe, culturally homogenous place.

The U.S. Vice President stood in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the White House press briefing room on Tuesday to cover her maternity leave, as reported by Breitbart News, and amid responses for a wide range of questions spoke out about the weekend’s Unite The Kingdom Rally.

The rally, convened by veteran street organiser and child rape gang critic Tommy Robinson, was called on Saturday 16th in defence of freedom of speech, civil liberties, and “our shared British identity, our history, our heritage, and the culture that connects England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland”.

Responding to a question that specifically highlighted protester’s concerns about “mass illegal migration and replacement of British culture”, Vance encouraged Britons who reject the modern paradigm of business-dominated government constantly pushing wages lower through human quantitative easing to keep fighting.

He said:

One of the problems that we have in all of Western societies is that we have a lot of people who have decided — Wall Street bankers, corporate lobbyists, and government officials — that what the United States and what the West need is more and more cheap labour. What we believe in this White House is what we need more and more of is high wages for American workers and investing in our own people.

What you see all over the West, and it’s kind of crazy, is this idea that the way to generate prosperity is to bring in millions and millions of unvetted people and drop them into your neighbourhoods, and we simply reject that idea.

So to everybody in the UK who rejects that idea, I’d encourage them to just keep on going.

Expressing concern about mass migration and its ill effects has long been portrayed as a simple expression of racism and beneath contempt and in the United Kingdom mass migration has been forced on the public for decades despite repeated election results showing the public mood on the matter.

In the long Tory era the government made play of understanding the concerns of the public, particularly at election time, but privately held voters in contempt and kept the borders firmly wedged open.

The country is now governed by the centre-left-globalist Labour Party of Keir Starmer, and the same effect is achieved with a different public-facing strategy, with supporters of a deportation programme simply labelled as extremist threats to the very social fabric, or “soul” of the country.

Encouraging Britons to simply side-step the criticism and stick to their guns on these deeply important political matters, Vice President Vance reassured that:

It’s OK to want to defend your culture, it’s OK to want to live in a safe neighbourhood, it’s OK to want your job to go to yourself and your neighbours, and not to a stranger who you don’t even know. It is reasonable for the people in Western societies to want to control who comes into their country and who doesn’t.

A lot of people — frankly, a lot of people in the media have tried to persuade all of those people that it’s somehow racist to want to protect your borders, even though very often the very people who are most affected by low wage immigration are lower income black and Hispanic Americans right here in the United States of America, and I guarantee that’s true in the UK.

So we believe in making America Great Again, you can’t do that unless you protect your borders, I’d encourage our friends in the UK to follow the same path.

Vance’s remarks are part of a series of such made by the Vice President to offer morale support to European sovereigntists and conservatives since he took office under President Donald Trump last year.

The first and most prominent of these interjections was his Munich Security Conference speech in February 2025 when he accused European leaders of ever-less-liberal attitudes, stating: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people”.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance encouraged the British public protesting against the longstanding government policy of flooding the jobs market with mass migration to “just keep going” and remember “it’s OK” to want to live in a safe, culturally homogenous place.

The U.S. Vice President stood in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the White House press briefing room on Tuesday to cover her maternity leave, as reported by Breitbart News, and amid responses for a wide range of questions spoke out about the weekend’s Unite The Kingdom Rally.

The rally, convened by veteran street organiser and child rape gang critic Tommy Robinson, was called on Saturday 16th in defence of freedom of speech, civil liberties, and “our shared British identity, our history, our heritage, and the culture that connects England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland”.

Responding to a question that specifically highlighted protester’s concerns about “mass illegal migration and replacement of British culture”, Vance encouraged Britons who reject the modern paradigm of business-dominated government constantly pushing wages lower through human quantitative easing to keep fighting.

He said:

One of the problems that we have in all of Western societies is that we have a lot of people who have decided — Wall Street bankers, corporate lobbyists, and government officials — that what the United States and what the West need is more and more cheap labour. What we believe in this White House is what we need more and more of is high wages for American workers and investing in our own people.

What you see all over the West, and it’s kind of crazy, is this idea that the way to generate prosperity is to bring in millions and millions of unvetted people and drop them into your neighbourhoods, and we simply reject that idea.

So to everybody in the UK who rejects that idea, I’d encourage them to just keep on going.

Expressing concern about mass migration and its ill effects has long been portrayed as a simple expression of racism and beneath contempt and in the United Kingdom mass migration has been forced on the public for decades despite repeated election results showing the public mood on the matter.

In the long Tory era the government made play of understanding the concerns of the public, particularly at election time, but privately held voters in contempt and kept the borders firmly wedged open.

The country is now governed by the centre-left-globalist Labour Party of Keir Starmer, and the same effect is achieved with a different public-facing strategy, with supporters of a deportation programme simply labelled as extremist threats to the very social fabric, or “soul” of the country.

Encouraging Britons to simply side-step the criticism and stick to their guns on these deeply important political matters, Vice President Vance reassured that:

It’s OK to want to defend your culture, it’s OK to want to live in a safe neighbourhood, it’s OK to want your job to go to yourself and your neighbours, and not to a stranger who you don’t even know. It is reasonable for the people in Western societies to want to control who comes into their country and who doesn’t.

A lot of people — frankly, a lot of people in the media have tried to persuade all of those people that it’s somehow racist to want to protect your borders, even though very often the very people who are most affected by low wage immigration are lower income black and Hispanic Americans right here in the United States of America, and I guarantee that’s true in the UK.

So we believe in making America Great Again, you can’t do that unless you protect your borders, I’d encourage our friends in the UK to follow the same path.

Vance’s remarks are part of a series of such made by the Vice President to offer morale support to European sovereigntists and conservatives since he took office under President Donald Trump last year.

The first and most prominent of these interjections was his Munich Security Conference speech in February 2025 when he accused European leaders of ever-less-liberal attitudes, stating: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people”.

breitbart

Irrelevant Europe

GROK

by J.B. Shurk 

Josep Borrell is a Spanish socialist who held several high-ranking positions in the European Union.  Until 2024, he was a vice-president of the European Commission and the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy.  In that capacity, he ran Europe’s External Action Service, which is the diplomatic body that executes Europe’s foreign policy decisions around the world.  He remains a man with a great deal of influence over European perspectives.

In 2022, Borrell created a bit of an international incident when he described Europe as a “garden” and the rest of the world as a “jungle.”  “We have built a garden,” he told aspiring European diplomats in Bruges, Belgium.  “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle.  The jungle could invade the garden.  The gardeners should take care of it.”  

As the head of the European Defense Agency, Borrell’s comments made strategic sense.  As he said in that same speech, “The jungle has a strong growth capacity…Walls will never be high enough to protect the garden.  The gardeners have to go to the jungle, Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world.  Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.”  

Borrell’s speech came seven years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open her country’s borders to millions of Islamic immigrants.  Originally touted as a humanitarian policy designed to temporarily shelter refugees from war-torn Syria, Germany’s generous welfare programs quickly became a magnet for young men across the Middle East and North Africa.  When Merkel declared on August 31, 2015, “We can do this,” she initiated an all-of-society “welcome culture” that quickly produced a full-blown migrant crisis for the whole continent.  Over ten years later, the influx of millions of Muslims into Europe has transformed school demographics and local politics, unleashed an explosion in sex crimes and anti-European violence, strained Europe’s hospital services and social safety nets, and exacerbated government debt.  

Speaking after the “jungle” had already successfully invaded Europe’s “garden,” Borrell knew there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle.  Merkel’s fateful decision to “welcome” Middle Easterners to Europe transformed cities and towns across Europe into the Middle East.  Borrell also knew that the European Union’s patchwork defense agency did not have the requisite military and espionage assets to effectively protect the continent.  So he tried to fashion his corps of young diplomats into a network of information and persuasion agents who could do Europe’s bidding around the world. 

Borrell’s message got lost in the ensuing international kerfuffle over his “garden” / “jungle” division of the world.  From Russia to Canada, Africa to Southeast Asia, every self-described “foreign policy expert” took umbrage at Borrell’s bluntness.  Perpetually offended virtue-signalers hadn’t gotten so worked-up since President Trump had called Haiti a “shithole country” four years earlier.  Just as Conan O’Brien felt compelled to white-knight for Haiti’s dystopian, cannibal gangland by visiting a heavily guarded resort in the Caribbean country and recklessly encouraging vacationers to join him, legions of politically correct snobs from around the planet recorded social media videos from their country estates in which they turned tsk-tsk-ing into a veritable lingua franca for the vicariously aggrieved. 

All the “very best people” denounced Borrell for promoting a scarcely disguised restoration of European imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and genocide.  Young international students enjoying university scholarships and living in Europe for free made sure to remind Borrell that “diversity is our strength.”  Borrell’s socialist comrades beat him over the head with Europe’s prime directive: multiculturalism über alles.  Mohammadbagher Forough, a random research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, publicly reprimanded Europe’s foreign minister thusly: “This kind of comment puts a serious dent in the enterprise of European strategic autonomy.  It upsets, at the most profound level, countries in the rest of the world, because of the history of colonialism.”  

In other words, Europe’s “ruling class” and auxiliary straphangers condemned Borrell for daring to defend the beneficiaries of Western civilization.  He was encouraged by threat of high-culture social banishment to follow Chancellor Merkel’s example in supplicating before the migrant hordes.  The message was clear: Europe’s minister of defense cannot properly “defend” Europe unless he allows non-Europeans to take over the continent.  It was further proof that Europe is irreparably lost.

Since his departure from the European Union’s foreign policy perch at the end of 2024, Borrell has spent most of his time in public lambasting President Trump’s global leadership.  A staunch supporter of Ukraine who once threatened to “annihilate” the Russian army, Borrell has frequently defended the honor of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by claiming that Ukraine’s holdover president is leading “the resistance” and “deserves respect.”  After President Trump described Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections,” Borrell called the “accusation” the “height of dishonesty.”  When President Trump and Vice President Vance took offense to Zelenskyy’s sense of entitlement and disregard for American taxpayers who have paid the salaries and pensions of Ukraine’s government workforce, Borrell screamed on X, “Trump and Vance have put on a disgraceful show.  I am ashamed of that behavior.”  

In response to Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last year during which the vice president excoriated Europe’s crackdown on free speech and political dissent, Borrell lectured his erstwhile colleagues: “This is a declaration of political war against the European Union.”  Going further, Europe’s former defense minister declared, “Europe must stop pretending that Trump is not an adversary and assert its technological, security, and political sovereignty with clarity and strength.”

As much as I find Borrell’s socialist-globalist politics abhorrent, I respect his impulse to defend his fellow Europeans.  The problem is that the European Union is a governmental monstrosity — bureaucratically lethargic, ideologically suffocating, foolishly regulatory, unmoored from its stated principles, opposed to public debate, enamored with its empires’ past glories, and increasingly oppressive.  Eurocrats such as Borrell believed they could reconstitute European centrality in the world by constructing a “rules-based international order” and forcing every other nation in the world to bend to Europe’s will.  Brussels has long desired to rule the world through rule-making. 

It turns out that depending on the United States for security, the Russian Federation for energy, and communist China for critical imports is not a blueprint for European strength.  To his credit, Borrell understands Europe’s dilemma.  He knows that the European Union “was not designed for the world in which we live today.”  Forced to watch President Trump remake the world without showing any deference to Europe’s globalist prerogatives, Borrell openly laments, “We are not very relevant to international politics.”  

Can you imagine how difficult of an admission that is for Borrell to make?  He has been weaned on the notion of European superiority all his life.  Even as parts of the European continent careen toward civil war, Borrell still believes that Europe is the world’s idyllic “garden” and everywhere else remains wild “jungle.”  From Borrell’s perspective, not only is Haiti a “shithole country” but also the United States is, too.  

Borrell finally realizes, however, that Europe survives only because the rest of the world permits it to endure.  When you depend upon the United States, Japan, India, China, Russia, and the Middle East to produce everything that Europe’s dying empire needs, then you have no leverage or real power in the world.  European imperialism is dead because Europe has no armies or navies to enforce its “rules-based” edicts.  European imperialism is dead because sane nations refuse to impoverish themselves in the name of carbon credit tyranny.  European imperialism is dead because Europe opened its doors to an Islamic invasion. 

Europe is the “jungle.”  The “garden” is gone.  European hubris sealed its fate.

americanthinker

Germany’s Most Popular Party, the AfD, Is Being Brutally Targeted in a One-Sided Wave of Political Violence

New government data out of Germany is fueling fierce debate, as figures reveal that the country’s most popular opposition party—the right-wing anti-globalist Alternative for Germany (AfD)—has become the primary target of political violence, raising serious questions about the state of democracy in Europe’s largest economy.

According to official statistics, reported on by several German outlets, nearly two-thirds of all violent attacks against politicians in 2025 were directed at members of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party that has surged in popularity in recent months.

The numbers are stark. Out of 183 recorded violent attacks against political figures, 121 targeted AfD representatives—more than all other major parties combined.

The figures, for or supporters of the party, confirm what they have long argued: that Germany’s political establishment and media have created a climate of hostility that has now spilled over into physical violence.

AfD MP Martin Hess pulled no punches in his response to the data.

“Those who constantly defame, delegitimize and dehumanize the AfD and its supporters shouldn’t be surprised when enemies of democracy see in this a call to violence,” he said.

The sheer scale and consistency of the attacks leads critics point to something deeper than isolated incidents. The violence is not evenly distributed across the political spectrum.

Government data indicates that roughly 60 percent of violent politically motivated crimes were attributed to left-wing extremist suspects, compared to just 11 percent linked to right-wing perpetrators.

The imbalance directly contradicts the dominant narrative often promoted in mainstream political discourse.
And violence goes beyond physical attacks.

AfD members were also the most frequent targets of so-called “speech offenses,” including threats, defamation, and harassment, accounting for over a third of such cases nationwide.

In total, more than 1,800 politically motivated crimes were recorded against AfD figures in 2025 alone. Party infrastructure has also been under sustained pressure.

AfD offices were targeted in 239 separate incidents, ranging from vandalism to arson, placing them among the most attacked political facilities in the country.
Even Germany’s ruling, globalist establishment parties have not been immune.

The CDU/CSU bloc saw a sharp increase in attacks on its own facilities, particularly after cooperating with AfD votes on a parliamentary migration proposal earlier in the year.

In one week alone, 30 attacks were recorded against CDU buildings following that vote, highlighting the intensity of political tensions surrounding immigration policy.

Despite this, the pattern remains clear: the party that challenges the political status quo—with that clearly being the AfD—bears the brunt of the backlash.
The AfD’s platform—centered on stricter immigration controls, national sovereignty, and opposition to EU policies—has made it a lightning rod in Germany’s increasingly polarized political landscape.

At the same time, the party’s rising popularity has only heightened tensions.

Recent polling has placed the AfD well ahead of traditional liberal CDU, marking a significant shift in German politics.
The AfD has surged to a record 29%—matching the SPD, FDP, and Greens combined—marking a sudden collapse of Germany’s political establishment as voters across Europe reject what elites call extremism and instead see it as failed governance.

For critics of the current system, of which there is an ever-increasing number, the surge reflects growing dissatisfaction with mainstream parties, particularly on issues such as migration and economic policy.

But that shift has also triggered fierce resistance from an entrenched system unwilling to relinquish power.

Large-scale protests, media campaigns, and political isolation efforts have been directed at the party, with opponents frequently labeling it as beyond the democratic mainstream.

AfD figures argue that such rhetoric has consequences. They claim that constant public vilification creates an environment in which violence becomes normalized—or at least excused.

“This development is the result of years of political and media disinhibition,” Hess said, pointing to what he sees as a broader breakdown in civil discourse.
The broader question now facing Germany is whether political competition can remain peaceful in such a climate.

For a country that prides itself on democratic stability, the rise in politically motivated violence presents a serious challenge.
It also raises concerns about the ability of opposition movements to operate freely without intimidation.

While the government insists there is no organized campaign behind the attacks, others argue that the data tells a different story.
They point to the concentration of incidents, the ideological imbalance among perpetrators, and the sustained targeting of a single political force.
The issue goes beyond party politics.

It touches on the fundamental principles of democratic engagement: the right to participate, to campaign, and to express political views without fear of violence.

As Germany moves toward its next electoral cycle, these concerns are almost cetrain to intensify.

The combination of rising political polarization, shifting voter preferences, rising political violence, and a general escalation of tensions on the ground, in the media, and in the parliament, suggests a volatile period ahead.

thegatewaypundit

Sexual Scandal: Wave of Arrests in Parisian Schools

Medforth AI

Within a matter of months, the Paris after-school care scandal has emerged as one of the most serious scandals to hit the French capital’s state schools in decades. Behind this term lie dozens of reports of physical violence, sexual assault and, in some cases, rape involving staff hired for after-school activities organised by the City of Paris. The case took on major political significance in the run-up to the 2026 local elections, calling into question city hall’s oversight mechanisms, the slowness of legal proceedings and the relative silence that surrounded certain reports for several years.

Within a few months, cases scattered across several arrondissements piled up. In some instances, the incidents date back to 2019. Yet for a long time, these cases were handled separately, without any real overarching narrative. It is precisely this that now fuels the accusations of a ‘code of silence’ levelled by parents’ groups.

The scandal truly exploded into the public eye during the Paris municipal election campaign. A series of revelations emerged between January and April 2026: a surge in complaints, revelations about reports that had not been acted upon promptly, staff members transferred from one institution to another despite previous warnings, and administrative investigations that remained confidential. Many families felt that the systemic gravity of the problem had been downplayed both by the outgoing city council and by sections of the national press, which for a long time treated the cases as mere local news items. The contrast is all the more striking given that the figures revealed since then are considerable.

The scale of the phenomenon now appears difficult to dispute. According to data provided by the Paris public prosecutor’s office, investigations concern more than a hundred establishments: 84 nursery schools, around 20 primary schools and a dozen crèches. All arrondissements are reportedly affected. Since the start of 2026, 78 childcare workers have been suspended by the city of Paris, 31 of them on suspicion of sexual abuse. In 2025 alone, 46 suspensions had already been imposed, 20 of which were for sexual offences.

The complaints lodged by families also illustrate the depth of the trauma. In some establishments, dozens of children have been interviewed by investigators. At the Paul-Dubois nursery school in the 3rd arrondissement, 15 complaints were filed against a youth worker and 19 children were interviewed as part of the proceedings. Other cases involve repeated assaults on children aged between three and ten. The young age of the victims adds to the horror of the abuse suffered. Parents’ groups have formed, such as SOS Périscolaire, denouncing not so much an isolated recruitment issue as a chain of institutional failures: failure to escalate reports, managerial inaction, the transfer of problematic staff, and a lack of transparency towards families.

Given the scale of the scandal and the lack of a commensurate response from Anne Hidalgo’s team, one might have hoped that the Socialist teams vying to succeed her would be censured by the voters. This was not the case—due, in particular, to the timid press coverage of the events. Faced with the crisis, the new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, eventually adopted a firm stance. He spoke of a “systemic” phenomenon, promised a zero-tolerance policy, and announced an action plan worth around 20 million euros. Among the measures put forward are a simplification of reporting procedures, a strengthening of administrative controls and, above all, the organisation of a citizens’ convention on after-school care and children’s free time. 

But these responses are considered largely insufficient by the families. The participatory convention has all the hallmarks of a false technocratic response to extremely serious incidents. Whilst discussions are taking place, no fundamental reforms to recruitment, disciplinary oversight, or background checks are being implemented. For exasperated parents, it is clear that the council waited until it was under media and electoral pressure to acknowledge the scale of the problem—and still doesn’t draw the appropriate conclusions.

The disconnect between the severity of the reported offences and the initial judicial responses is also fuelling anger. The first landmark trial in the scandal, held behind closed doors in early May 2026, concerned a youth worker prosecuted for sexual harassment and sexual assault against several young girls. The prosecution sought an 18-month suspended prison sentence. This relative leniency shocked many parents, who see it as a sign that the justice system remains hesitant when it comes to sexual violence against minors in a school setting.

At the same time, some after-school activity leaders feel they have become the scapegoats of the crisis. A broad inter-union coalition called for a strike in May 2026 to denounce “unjustified suspensions” and a climate of widespread suspicion. Some unions accuse the city hall of issuing more suspensions to project an image of firmness to the public.

This situation has created a striking contrast: on the one hand, staff denouncing a policy deemed too repressive; on the other, families describing lasting trauma in children who are sometimes very young. The city council is simultaneously attempting to reassure parents and demonstrate that it is acting swiftly, whilst avoiding a complete breakdown in relations with a professional workforce that is essential to the running of Parisian schools.

The latest twist came on Wednesday, May 20th, with a wave of arrests in several cases linked to Parisian after-school clubs. Investigators carried out a wide-ranging crackdown targeting, in particular, activity leaders suspected of sexual abuse of minors. This acceleration of legal proceedings comes as Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau has publicly acknowledged the existence of a “considerable” number of cases still awaiting processing.

The Paris after-school care scandal now goes beyond the mere issue of a few criminal individuals. The scale of the responsibilities should have called for an exemplary political sanction, but it is too late for Paris. The minister for national education, Édouard Geffray, has expressed support for the creation of a “blacklist” to exclude individuals who have exhibited “unacceptable behaviour” towards children but who have not been convicted of a criminal offence. That would still be better than nothing.

europeanconservative

EU faces backlash for awarding Merkel with Order of Merit despite her ‘crimes against Europe’

Yesterday, the European Parliament awarded former German Chancellor Angela Merkel the highest ranking of its new European Order of Merit. Alongside Merkel, Poland’s former president Lech Walesa received the same recognition, as well as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Former European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso praised Merkel’s “tireless commitment to European integration and shared values, to bridging the East-West divide, and to strengthening the stability and cohesion of Europe.”

The EU, Merkel told those gathered, has been a “pioneer” when it comes to the regulation of social media and AI. However, she warned that more needs to be done, claiming that democracy itself is threatened by “lies” spread by the rise of social media. She even claimed that “the basic foundations of the European Enlightenment are in danger” because of it.

Others were quick to counter her. Already, before she received the award, conservative and nationalist MEPs had reportedly left the chamber in protest. Merkel is seen as not only the architect of the EU’s open border policy back in 2015, which ultimately allowed in millions of migrants, with far-reaching and violent consequences for France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Austria, to list just a few stories.

She also laid the groundwork for Germany’s exit from nuclear power, which has fueled the country’s economic deterioration in the face of higher energy prices and the challenges of green technologies.

However, at stake yesterday was Merkel’s attack on free speech and what many deem normal democratic principles.

Yesterday, the European Parliament awarded former German Chancellor Angela Merkel the highest ranking of its new European Order of Merit. Alongside Merkel, Poland’s former president Lech Walesa received the same recognition, as well as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Former European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso praised Merkel’s “tireless commitment to European integration and shared values, to bridging the East-West divide, and to strengthening the stability and cohesion of Europe.”

The EU, Merkel told those gathered, has been a “pioneer” when it comes to the regulation of social media and AI. However, she warned that more needs to be done, claiming that democracy itself is threatened by “lies” spread by the rise of social media. She even claimed that “the basic foundations of the European Enlightenment are in danger” because of it.

Others were quick to counter her. Already, before she received the award, conservative and nationalist MEPs had reportedly left the chamber in protest. Merkel is seen as not only the architect of the EU’s open border policy back in 2015, which ultimately allowed in millions of migrants, with far-reaching and violent consequences for France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Austria, to list just a few stories.

She also laid the groundwork for Germany’s exit from nuclear power, which has fueled the country’s economic deterioration in the face of higher energy prices and the challenges of green technologies.

However, at stake yesterday was Merkel’s attack on free speech and what many deem normal democratic principles.

Investigative journalist Zara Riffler called out Merkel for her idea of democracy: “Merkel is no longer making any secret of her understanding of ‘democracy.’ She wants tough regulation for social media & AI – she wants to punish ‘lies’ (!) – in other words, a digital world in which there is only the one truth that is approved from above. That is her true face.”

Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s anti-migration AfD party, referenced the continuous efforts to ban the AfD in the face of its surging popularity among German voters as the real threat to democracy.

“The only real danger to democracy comes from those who, with anti-democratic firewalls, seek to thwart a change of power through the voters. So that they can cling to their posts for a little while longer,” she wrote on X.

Other X accounts were more brutal. “David Gegen Goliath” wrote: “Angela Merkel has been awarded the European Order of Merit by the EU! Merkel was responsible for the refugee crisis – 5 million Muslims immigrated to Germany: 3 million Arab men. 60% without a job. I can’t believe it. They’re rewarding a criminal!”

Finnish MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen claimed the European Parliament brought in random people to applaud Merkel, the woman “who destroyed Europe.”

He told press that it is a “disgrace” that the person behind the migrant crisis was being given a prize. Referencing Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and the girls being raped by migrants across the continent, the families ruined, Tynkkynen said Merkel should be in court for her “crimes against Europe” not being lauded.

rmx

Bataclan terrorist already granted penitentiary leave in Belgium

On Friday, November 13, 2015, three heavily armed Islamic State (IS) militants stormed the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance by the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal, killing 90 people and taking hostages. The attack was the deadliest in a series of coordinated assaults across Paris that night, which left a total of 130 people dead.Bataclan – Google Maps

Mohamed Bakkali, convicted in France as a central figure in the logistics of the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and injured hundreds more, has been granted multiple temporary prison leaves by a Belgian court.

The Brussels Tribunal d’Application des Peines (TAP) approved six penitentiary leaves of up to 36 hours each for the 39-year-old, a Moroccan-Belgian national who is serving his sentence in Ittre prison, a high-security facility in Walloon Brabant.

He has already benefited from several short permissions since July 2025.

Bakkali was sentenced in France to 30 years in prison for his role in the Paris attacks. The verdict was handed down in June 2022 at the conclusion of the so-called V13 trial, the longest criminal proceedings in modern French history, which involved 20 defendants over almost 10 months.

Prior to this, he received 25 years for his role in the foiled Thalys train attack in August 2015, when a heavily armed gunman boarding the high-speed service from Amsterdam to Paris was overpowered by passengers.

He rented safe houses in Belgium for the terror cell and provided logistical support. The same network was later behind the March 22, 2016 Brussels bombings at Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station, which killed 32 people and wounded more than 300.

The French authorities decided to merge his sentences to the maximum of 30 years, Belgian news agency Belga reported.

Following an agreement at the time of his extradition, he is serving his sentence in Belgium rather than France.

Under Belgian prison rules, convicts can qualify for temporary leaves and conditional release after serving only one-third of their sentence. That is a much more lenient regime than in France, where a two-thirds safety period would have kept him behind bars far longer.

News outlet La Capitale reported he already was granted five periods of day release since July 2025.

This year, he applied for prison leave.

On May 11, 2026, the Sentence Enforcement Court approved the application, despite a negative recommendation from the Public Prosecution Service, allowing Bakkali to apply.

The same court said Bakkali had taken sufficient steps to find work and accommodation and had behaved “calmly and respectfully” in prison.

He has also already met with some of the victims, which, according to them, indicates his desire to rebuild his ties with society.

The Sentence Enforcement Court reportedly sees no reason to fear that he would harass the victims.

His theoretical release date remains 2040, but he became eligible for conditional release as early as February 2024.

In a reaction to Brussels Signal, N-VA MP Sophie De Wit said it was “difficult to comprehend” that Bakkali is set to be granted prison leave as early as 2026, despite a negative recommendation from the public prosecutor’s office. N-VA is the senior partner in the federal coalition led by Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

“Cases of this calibre are not about the standard enforcement of sentences, but about a very concrete assessment of the risk to society. When the public prosecutor’s office itself issues a negative recommendation, serious alarm bells should certainly be ringing.

“At the same time, the figures show that this is not merely a theoretical debate: in 2025, 434 prisoners failed to return from prison leave on time. This underscores the fact that any decision regarding such leave poses a real security risk and must therefore be taken with the utmost caution.

“Furthermore, the Belgian government wishes to tighten the conditions for prison leave and temporary release permits and to monitor more strictly the granting and eligibility for these forms of sentence enforcement. This must be handled with particular care, especially in cases involving serious terrorism.”

De Wit said her party had “serious questions” about the decision.

“In terrorism cases, the bar must be set very high, and any doubt must be resolved in favour of the victims and public safety, rather than in favour of the detainee. Furthermore, the question arises as to what extent the victims in this case were actually informed and involved in the proceedings. In such serious terrorism cases, this is not a mere detail, but an essential element of trust in the justice system.”

Vlaams Belang MP Alexander Van Hoecke, from the opposition in the Belgian federal parliament, said it was “completely incomprehensible and outrageous, especially given the negative advice from the Brussels public prosecutor’s office”.

“This concerns a terrorist and a mass murderer. If the justice system cannot manage to punish someone like this in the harshest possible way and permanently remove him from our society, what trust can we still have in justice and the government? Who is going to explain this to the victims? The fact that this is even possible is a gap in the legislation that must be closed.”

On the evening of November 13, 2015, Islamist terrorists from the Islamic State carried out a series of coordinated attacks across Paris.

In just over three hours, they killed 130 people and wounded more than 400, many of them critically.

The deadliest assault occurred at the Bataclan concert hall, where three gunmen burst in during a rock concert by Eagles of Death Metal and massacred 90 people.

They fired Kalashnikov rifles into the trapped crowd at close range for over two hours, executing victims one by one and throwing grenades. Survivors described scenes of extreme cruelty.

Simultaneously, suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France during a football match attended by 80,000 people, including then-president François Hollande, while other attackers carried out drive-by shootings on crowded restaurant and café terraces in the 10th and 11th arrondissements.

It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in France since the Second World War.

brusselssignal

Is Europe Ending Up as One Big No-Go Zone?

In late March, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, a center-right political group in the European Parliament, published a report about no-go zones in Europe about no-go zones in Europe titled “Immigration, Islamisation, and the Rise of Parallel Societies: Focus on urban areas of Islamist entrenchment and state withdrawal,” authored by New Direction – Foundation for European Conservatism

For many years, the existence of no-go zones in European cities was publicly denied by the ruling elites and their spokespersons in the mainstream media. If anyone raised the issue, as US President Donald Trump did in December 2015, when he spoke of no-go zones in London and Paris, or here at Gatestone Institute, they were mocked and denigrated for it (here and here). Meanwhile, the problem exponentiated. According to the report:

“There are now an estimated 900 to 1,000 areas across Europe that exhibit the key characteristics of no-go zones. This includes major urban suburbs as well as districts in medium-sized or smaller cities, reflecting a broad and growing territorial trend.”

Given the enormity of the problem, the authors of the report had to limit their focus to “seven EU countries where no-go zones are most reported: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands.”

The report noted — no surprise — that no-go zones are closely correlated to the mass immigration of Muslims into Europe since the 1970s (more than 40% of the population in the studied no-go zones is “foreign-born”). The report adds:

“The Muslim population is markedly overrepresented in designated no-go zones. In these areas, the average proportion of Muslim residents reaches 29%, significantly exceeding both the EU-wide average of 4,9% and the average in comparable urban areas outside no-go zones….

Since 2000, a disproportionate share of asylum seekers and new EU citizens have come from countries where Islam is the dominant religion. Of the top 15 origin countries among asylum seekers between January 2024 and March 2025, 11 are Muslim-majority… Similarly, the 3 largest nationality groups granted EU citizenship in 2023 were all from Muslim-majority nations (Syria, Morocco, and Albania).”

No-go zones, according to the report, are especially characterized by high rates of crime, violence and terrorist recruitment. In Belgium in 2022, 44% of all robberies took place in Brussels — home to just 10% of the country’s population – and in the no-go zone of Molenbeek.

Some of the most notorious Muslim terrorists grew up in Molenbeek or spent time there, including those behind the 2015 Paris attacks, the 2016 Brussels airport and metro attacks, and the 2014 attack at the Jewish Museum of Belgium. Molenbeek was apparently also a breeding ground for terrorist recruitment for ISIS, with Belgium contributing the highest number per capita of Western ISIS fighters.

“Molenbeek is like another world, another culture, festering in the heart of the West,” journalist Matthew Levitt wrote in 2016, after the Paris attacks.

Molenbeek, however, is just one example. According to the report:

“Several European neighborhoods have repeatedly played a key role in jihadist networks…. Seine-Saint-Denis [a Paris suburb]… has produced several figures of French jihadism. Samy Amimour, a member of the Bataclan terrorist commando, was born in Drancy. Other members of jihadist networks (such as the ‘Cannes-Torcy’ cell) came from towns like Clichy-sous-Bois, Aulnay-sous-Bois, or Stains…. In summary, European no-go zones provide an environment where terrorism can more easily take root.”

In the UK, states the report, parts of the industrial-scale rape of white girls by predominantly Pakistani Muslim gangs took place “particularly in no-go zones like Rotherham, Rochdale, and Oldham” through “a disturbing pattern of state complicity through silence and inaction.”

“This institutional reluctance, driven by political correctness, allowed gangs to operate with impunity in NGZs, where cultural segregation and weak policing created fertile ground for such crimes, effectively rendering the state an accomplice through its failure to protect victims.”

No-go zones are also parallel societies that follow Islamic norms predicated on sharia law — far removed from Western norms — rather than the law of the land in which they live:

“In Western Europe, especially in France and the UK, community-based Islamic structures are establishing parallel normative systems that operate independently of national laws. The most emblematic example is the United Kingdom, where Sharia Councils function as unofficial religious courts. The most well-known, the Islamic Sharia Council in London (established in 1982), handles over 1,000 cases per year, primarily concerning family law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, child custody)….

“Investigative reports revealed disturbing practices: women pressured to return to abusive husbands, divorces denied without the husband’s consent, and blatant inequality in child custody and property division. Officially, these councils claim to operate within British law, but in practice, they prioritize patriarchal religious norms over civil rights.”

These Islamic norms spill over into the “mainstream.” In Germany in 2014, Muslims created “sharia patrols” to enforce religious rules in the streets of Wuppertal. Initially the patrol was deemed legal by a local court, but this was later overturned by the federal judiciary. Showcasing how extremely poorly equipped authorities are to deal with this sort of torment, the Muslim men were fined symbolic amounts for simply wearing illegal uniforms, but not for their vigilante brutality enforcing sharia law.

Nowadays, Muslim men in certain neighborhoods simply corner women and harass them. Belinda de Lucy, a British former member of the European Parliament was accosted in the street near her home in west London while walking to pick up her daughters from school. Two Muslim men in Islamic garb blocked her from walking down the street, threatening her, shouting at her, and calling her names for not wearing sharia-conforming dress (she was wearing a large T-shirt and shorts halfway down her knees) until she burst into tears and called the police.

“What is happening? This is my home!” de Lucy said in a television interview, describing how the police’s response was as scary as what should rightly be called an assault.

“They sent round a gentleman [police officer] who kept reminding me that he was Muslim… I felt I had to be careful what I say and how I address this… in the end all I got from the local police was ‘We’ll talk to the local imam and get him to chat with the congregation.’ And it really shocked me…”

It is not so shocking, considering that in Muslim-majority countries, which often practice gender apartheid, women have no rights and are regarded as second-class, inferior beings, like property:

“Women have rights similar to those of men equitably, although men have a degree ˹of responsibility˺ above them. And Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.”
 Quran: 2:228 (Dr. Mustafa Khattab translation)

“Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.”
— Quran 4:34 (Sahih International translation)

“O women, give in charity, for I have been shown that you are the majority of the inhabitants of Hell.”
They asked, “Why is that, O Messenger of Allah?”
He replied, “You curse a lot and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intellect and religion who overcomes the mind of a resolute man more than one of you.”
They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, what is the deficiency in our intellect and religion?”
He said, “Is not the testimony of a woman equal to half the testimony of a man?”
They said, “Yes.”
He said, “That is the deficiency in her intellect.”
— Hadith: Sahih al-Bokhari

“The Prophet (ﷺ) said, ‘Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.'”
— Narrated Abu Sa’id Al-Khudri, Hadith, Sahih al-Bukhari 2658, Book 52 Hadith 22; Vol:3, Book 48, Hadith 826

The report continues:

“The rise of Islamic norms comes with a transformation of urban life in immigrant-dense neighborhoods… European traditions and customs give way to conservative Muslim practices…

“In suburbs like Sevran, located in the Seine-Saint-Denis departement in France, women have reported being informally excluded from cafés and local restaurants….

“Numerous testimonies… describe women facing insults, intimidation, or exclusion for failing to conform to Islamic dress codes. In such contexts, what was once a personal religious expression becomes a communal norm, enforced not by the state but by the collective will of the neighborhood.

“In Grenoble, legal and political tensions escalated after the city’s ecologist mayor, Éric Piolle, proposed changes to public swimming pool regulations. These included allowing female-only swimming hours and authorizing the wearing of burkinis… Grenoble, a city with a significant Muslim population, became a national focal point in the ongoing debate over religious accommodation in public life…. In the end, the French supreme administrative court… ruled against such accommodations, affirming the principle that public institutions must remain free from religious particularism.”

The report concludes:

“Europe now stands at a crossroads. An increasing segment of the European population is now rejecting the values, symbols, and collective identity of their country of citizenship, giving rise to a new class of nationals who feel no allegiance to the nation-state and do not recognize themselves in its cultural roots and project.”

The real question is whether this shift — perpetrated by European leaders who seem solely self-interested in wooing votes, can be reversed — or whether European citizens are looking at a future of inevitable submission to Islam. At present, unfortunately, the second path appears more likely.

gatestoneinstitute

UK pastor arrested for preaching Gospel message, criticizing Islamic violence

A pastor was arrested in London for criticizing the violence of Islam as he preached the Gospel in the street.

“It’s called inciting religious hatred — which is false,” Pastor Steve Maile, 66, told Fox News. “The cross of Christ is a message of hope, love, mercy, and reconciliation to a fallen world. … How could that be hate?”

Christian Concern reported that Maile “had been peacefully singing and preaching for around 10 minutes … calling people to repentance” and “discussing whether Islam is a religion of peace” before his arrest. 

“He criticised the history of violent Islam but said he had compassion and wanted Muslims to be saved by Jesus,” the report noted.

Video footage of Maile’s arrest shows an officer telling the pastor there was an allegation he had assaulted a child.

“There is no offence being committed here. None whatsoever,” Maile insisted as he was being handcuffed. “This is an utter disgrace. I’ve not assaulted anyone.”

Hertfordshire Police told Fox News that “A man aged in his 60s was arrested on suspicion of assault and a Section 5 public order offence (racially or religiously aggravated disorderly behavior).”

Section 5 makes it illegal in the U.K. to use “threatening or abusive words or behavior, or disorderly behavior” visible or audible to a person “likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.” A religiously aggravated Section 5 offense, considered to be “religiously aggravated harassment,” could carry heavy fines.

While police have dropped Maile’s charge of assault, he remains under investigation for an alleged public order offense after being released from jail on bail.

Maile alleged that the police officers did not formally read him his rights before he was forcefully bundled into a police car.

However, police told Fox News that “the conduct of the officers was reviewed and it was deemed no further action was necessary.”

Maile said he needed wrist splints for three weeks after being double handcuffed in “excruciating pain” for around 90 minutes. He also said he was detained for 12 hours without being permitted to use a restroom and without his phone.

“I don’t preach hate. I don’t preach violence. I preach the love of God, the mercy of God and the goodness of God in Christ Jesus,” he told Fox News. “Everybody needs to come by the way of the cross … And nobody gets a free pass.”

The Christian Legal Centre decried Maile’s arrest as “deeply troubling.”

“A peaceful, Christian preacher was treated like a serious criminal for expressing his Christian beliefs and that Islam is a false religion in a public place,” said Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre. “The footage raises fundamental questions about whether policing in this country is now criminalizing Christianity while failing to apply the law equally and consistently.”

Maile is the senior pastor of Oasis City Church in Watford, England, about an hour drive from central London. He has preached and conducted mission work globally for 45 years and is also a singer who often replaces the lyrics of famous songs with Christian messages.

lifesitenews

Divorce is haram: as a result, advice on child abduction is circulating among Muslims in Austria

GROK

In Islamic families, the man has the final say. As more and more women, even within migrant communities, stand up to violent husbands, they find themselves fearing for their children, as reported by the newspaper Die Presse. Instructions are circulating online on how to threaten to take children away in order to blackmail them into staying.
Official estimates suggest that hundreds, if not thousands, of adult women have come to Austria in recent years as victims of forced marriage and now live, in the midst of a constitutional state, under the total control of their violent husbands. Unfortunately, little is being done here to counteract this kind of gender role distribution. In some cases, polygamy is tolerated and even encouraged. In addition, there are up to 200 girls a year who already live in Austria, may even have been born here and attend school, but are forced into marriage by their families in their home country – usually Syria – during the summer holidays. Some never return to the Austrian schools, but a few are now fighting back against the oppression. Some even want a divorce, which is strictly forbidden in various cultures.

It is precisely these defiant women who are now to be made obedient and submissive again using a simple tactic. If they do not toe the line, then, as a Muslim man, one should simply abduct the children they have together. Detailed instructions on how to do this are available online, as reported by the newspaper Die Presse.

exxpress.

Pure Cope? Labour Members Believe They Can Win the Next General Election if They Change Leader

Support for Britain’s governing left-wing Labour party has cratered, but its own members think the threat isn’t existential and can be solved by simply changing its public face, new polling reveals.

A massive 74 per cent of paid-up members of the Labour Party — which presently controls the House of Commons and consequently chooses who the Prime Minister is — believes they’d outright win the next UK General Election if the present Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham took over as party leader.

The results from new polling on a variety of questions asked of Labour members underlines that the small — but for the next few months, very powerful — group believes they don’t have a party problem, but merely have a much more easily solved leader problem.

Indeed, the YouGov polling seems to imply that while Labour members understand the voting public doesn’t like Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, they also disagree with them for it, apparently believing he has been a good leader. A considerable 66 per cent said they thought Starmer had done a good job.

While a Labour leadership contest has been a matter of constant speculation for weeks, one still hasn’t been called as at least one potential candidate demurred at the last moment and another scrabbles to become eligible for the ballot. Nevertheless, asked how they would vote in a theoretical Labour leadership contest the weight of the party appears to be very much behind Mayor Andy Burnham at 47 per cent, with 31 per cent saying they still backed Starmer to keep the top job.

No other candidate broke ten per cent. Reducing it to a two-horse-race, Burnham picked up most of the support from the also-rans, leaping to 59 per cent, while Starmer advanced only a little to 37 per cent.

To what extend these Labour insiders have managed to delude themselves on the key question of whether their party is actually finished, having run out of voters to represent, or if it can wipe the sin away with a simple change of leadership, can only be truly tested at election time. Yet swathes of the country did already vote less than two weeks ago in nationwide local votes for councils and devolved Parliaments, in which Labour recorded some of its worst results ever.

The party even lost regions it has held for the entire history of the party going back to the end of the Great War. The greatest beneficiary of this collapse has been Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party which surged in those votes. On whether Labour can recover, Reform insiders clearly differ from the optimism of Labour members, with party strategy chief Danny Kruger saying last week: “the fact is, it doesn’t matter who it is, because the Labour Party is absolutely unable to govern in the national interest… the fact is they can’t make the changes the country needs and we won’t get that under this government, I’m afraid.

“So I do want a general election, we need that as soon as possible, but I don’t have any faith in any of the candidates coming through on the Labour side”.

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