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AMSTERDAM: Orange smoke flares burning and draped in the Dutch red, white, and blue flag, masked men rampage through the streets chanting “Wij zijn Nederland” — “We are the Netherlands.”
Even Amsterdam, known for its tolerance, got a taste on October 12 of a violent demonstration against immigration that has hit many Dutch cities ahead of elections on Wednesday.
As in many European countries, immigration is the hot political issue in the Netherlands, and has dominated campaigning in the run-up to the October 29 election.
Polls suggest the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) led by firebrand Geert Wilders could again top the vote with his anti-Islam, anti-immigration message.
“Immigration is going to be a big factor in how I’m going to vote,” said nurse Bianca de Vos.
“I find it very important to help people, but it doesn’t have to happen here, because here it’s too full,” the 51-year-old told AFP.
Like many voters, De Vos links immigration to the other hot-button topic in Dutch politics: a housing crisis that means many young people struggle to find accommodation.
“My son and youngest daughter can’t get houses because it’s too full,” said De Vos, amid anger over a perception that asylum-seekers get priority for low-cost housing.
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Lolkje de Vries, spokeswoman for Vluchtelingenwerk, a group that helps refugees and asylum-seekers, said she understands that perception.
“We do have a housing crisis in the Netherlands, there’s a shortage of social housing,” De Vries told AFP.
“But if we look at the numbers, then we see that less than 10 percent of social housing” goes to those granted asylum, she noted.
De Vries said refugees and asylum-seekers are “scapegoats for all kinds of problems” facing The Netherlands.
In fact, they have to endure lengthy waits for asylum claims to be assessed, she said, leading to psychological problems and difficulty integrating into society.
Marcel Lubbers, political science expert at the University of Utrecht, said scapegoating immigrants was an ancient phenomenon that far-right parties have seized on.
“The dissatisfaction with issues of migration, and with questions of identity and belonging have been relevant for many people since the 1980s and 1990s,” he told AFP.
“And this is now very successfully mobilized by parties on the radical right,” added Lubbers, noting the success of far-right politicians in France, Britain, Germany, and Italy.
‘Fed up’
The most recent figures from the Dutch Statistics Agency (CBS) showed that 316,000 people migrated to the Netherlands in 2024, a decline of 19,000 compared to the previous year.
According to data published last month by the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), first-time asylum requests dropped from 49,892 in 2003 to 45,639 — an 8.5-percent decline.
But the topic continues to dominate political discourse and even caused Wednesday’s early elections.
Wilders collapsed the previous cabinet, pulling out the PVV in frustration over slow progress in delivering “the strictest immigration policy ever.”
He had proposed closing the Dutch border to asylum-seekers, bolstering border controls, and expelling people with double nationality convicted of a crime.
Many political and legal experts dismissed the plans as illegal or impractical.
“People are fed up with mass immigration and the influx of people who really do not culturally belong here,” Wilders told AFP in an interview ahead of the elections.
“If you ask many Dutchmen today, or in many other countries, they feel strangers in their own land, strangers in their own neighborhood, strangers in their own city or village,” he said.
Anger at asylum-seekers has tipped into violence in several towns as people protesting against temporary shelters near their home clashed with police.
Violence also erupted in September when anti-immigration demonstrators rioted in The Hague, vandalising the offices of center-left party D66.
De Vries from Vluchtelingenwerk acknowledged the “hardening” of opinion in the Netherlands.
“At the same time, it’s important to note that we’re also seeing a rise in people that are willing to support refugees in the Netherlands, especially now,” she told AFP.