Europe's nationalist leaders declare an 'awakening'

KOBLENZ, Germany – European nationalist leaders came together Saturday in a show of strength at the start of a year of big election tests, celebrating Donald Trump's inauguration as U.S. president and declaring themselves a realistic alternative to the continent's governments.

Right-wing populist leaders from France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and elsewhere strode confidently into the Koblenz congress hall on the banks of the Rhine River ahead of a flag-waving escort, setting the tone for a gathering whose mood was buoyed by Trump's swearing-in. The European parties hope for similar success in tapping anti-establishment and protectionist sentiment in elections this year.

"I believe we are witnessing historic times," Dutch anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders told reporters. "The world is changing. America is changing. Europe is changing. And the people start getting in charge again."

Wilders, speaking in English, declared that "the genie will not go back into the bottle again, whether you like it or not."

Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front, reveled in Trump taking power in the U.S., months after Britain voted to leave the 28-nation European Union in a referendum that she hopes to emulate.

"2016 was the year when the Anglo-Saxon world woke up. And 2017, I am sure, will be the year of the awakening of the people of continental Europe," she said.

Le Pen's words brought to mind one of Adolf Hitler's favorite slogans in the 1930s, "Germany Awake!"

Le Pen is among the top contenders in France's April-May presidential vote. In September, Frauke Petry's four-year-old Alternative for Germany party hopes to enter the German parliament in a national election, riding sentiment against German Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcoming policy toward refugees. Other German parties say they won't work with the anti-immigrant group.

Those at the Koblenz conference are part of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group in the European Parliament, which was launched in 2015. The gathering also featured Matteo Salvini of Italy's anti-migrant Northern League and Harald Vilimsky, the general secretary of Austria's right-wing Freedom Party, which last year narrowly failed to win the country's presidency.

Trump "is a winner, we are winners: Frauke Petry, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, all of us here are winners," Vilimsky told an audience of around 1,000.

Speakers also denounced "political Islam" and Europe's common currency, the euro, which Salvini labeled "a failed, criminal experiment."

Le Pen denounced the E.U. as "a force of sterilization" and assailed Merkel — whose name was booed loudly — for allowing in large numbers of asylumseekers last year.

"We are experiencing the end of one world and the birth of another," she said. "We are experiencing the return of nation states."

Petry said "just as Donald Trump in America shows the way out of a dead end, with new prospects — including for [resolving] international conflicts — we want to do that in the coming months and years for Europe."

Elsewhere in Koblenz, demonstrators from the global AVAAZ activist group placed statues of Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Josef Stalin, among others, in front of a landmark statue of German Kaiser Wilhelm.

AVAAZ organizer Pascal Vollenweider said the statues of the dictators were meant to send a "strong message" to the nationalist politicians' meeting that "global citizens are rejecting their old dangerous ideas."

"They are not fascists in jackboots, it's a different type of fascism, of course. But if you look at the ideas … it's very dangerous, and we have to face it," he said.