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'Rise of nationalism in Europe, US result of ignoring grassroots'

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French President Francois Hollande has warned against the dangers of rising nationalism in his New Year address, criticizing an increase in anti-immigration and anti-euro sentiment. The French president cited the Brexit vote as well as the US presidential election as two examples which proved that democracy, freedom and peace were vulnerable and reversible. Hollande’s comments on Brexit were also echoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel insisted urged that even though the EU was “slow and arduous,” its member states should focus on common interests that go beyond national benefits.

Speaking to Press TV about the emergence of radical nationalism in Europe and the United States, Ian Williams, with Foreign Policy in Focus, said that the British people’s vote to leave the EU and also the surprising election of Donald Trump as the US president were both an expression of grassroots frustration with the establishment.

“Across Europe and the industrialized world, ordinary people have been marginalized. The elites have been overpaid. The voices of ordinary people have been mocked and scorned,” he said, adding that is why the public has turned towards groups and individuals with nationalist tendencies.

According to Williams, many of those who voted for Trump did not truly believe in his policies; rather, they just wanted to somehow poke the establishment by electing an outsider.

“[It] was the same in Britain with Brexit,” Williams added. “A set of the chattering classes, as they call them in Britain, are all convinced that Tony Blair and Cameron's commercialization and privatization were the answer to all of our problems. Only people disagreed, but nobody listened to them. Nobody thought their views were counting and I think it's similar across Europe. Ordinary people have been discounted.”

Therefore, he went on, this is a rational reaction by people who see their standards of living in decline. “What is irrational is that people will seek out and blame the Romanian gypsies who moved into town rather than the people who are sitting in House of Commons manipulating this.”


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