The rise of extremist sentiment has been fuelled by immigration and has been exacerbated by the economic crisis; when unemployment rises, so does anti-immigrant sentiment. Underlying it is an increasingly ugly strand of Islamophobia. What is most worrying, however, is the inability or unwillingness of mainstream political parties across Europe to confront these issues. As we have seen in this country, the refusal of the political establishment over many years to conduct a mature debate on immigration has played into the hands of the British National Party. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy is taking pre-emptive action against a resurgent National Front, which performed strongly in March's regional elections, with his expulsion of illegal Roma immigrants. However, Europe's leaders need to develop a more sophisticated approach to the many challenges posed by economic migration if the extremists are not to continue to prosper.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8014466/The-rise-of-the-far...
