Muslim Voters Change Europe
by Soeren Kern
May 17, 2012 at 5:00 am
May 17, 2012 at 5:00 am
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Muslims
cast the deciding voted that thrust Hollande into the Elysée Palace. He also
pledged to change French electoral laws so that Muslim residents without French
citizenship would be allowed to vote in municipal elections as of 2014,
enabling the Socialist Party to tighten its grip on political power.
An analysis of the voting patterns that
barrelled François Hollande to victory on May 6 as the first Socialist
president of France since 1995 shows that this overthrow was due in large
measure to Muslims, who voted for him in overwhelming numbers.
The French vote marks the first time that
Muslims have determined the outcome of a presidential election in a major
western European country; it is a preview of things to come.
As the politically active Muslim population in
France continues to swell, and as most Muslims vote for Socialist and leftwing
parties, conservative parties will find it increasingly difficult to win future
elections in France.
According to a survey of 10,000 French voters
conducted by the polling firm OpinionWay
for the Paris-based newspaper Le Figaro, an extaordinary 93% of French
Muslims voted for Hollande on May 6. By contrast, the poll shows that only 7%
of French Muslims voted for the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy.
An estimated 2 million Muslims participated in
the 2012 election, meaning that roughly 1.7 million Muslim votes went to
Hollande rather than to Sarkozy. In the election as a whole, however, Hollande
won over Sarkozy by only 1.1 million votes. This figure implies that Muslims
cast the deciding votes that thrust Hollande into the Élysée Palace.
France, home to between five and six million
Muslims, already has the largest Muslim population in the European Union, and
those numbers are expected to increase exponentially in coming years. According
to conservative
estimates, the Muslim population is projected to exceed 10% of the overall
French population within the next decade-and-a-half.
During the campaign, Hollande offered an
amnesty to all of the estimated 400,000 illegal Muslim immigrants currently in
France. He also pledged to change French electoral laws so that Muslim
residents without French citizenship would be allowed to vote in municipal
elections as of 2014. These measures, if implemented, would enable the
Socialist Party tighten its grip on political power, both at the regional and
national levels.
Muslims in France -- and across Europe as a
whole -- tend to support the Socialists for a variety of demographic,
socio-economic and ideological reasons.
Most Muslims in Europe live in lower-income
households and experience higher levels of unemployment. As a result,
Socialists and Muslims are locked into a politically advantageous
power-dependence relationship, between the givers of social welfare benefits
and the givers of votes. Not surprisingly, Socialists favor increased Muslim
immigration, which in turn produces more voters for Socialist parties.
In the ideological sphere, Socialists and
Muslims generally share a mutual antipathy for traditional Judeo-Christian
values. Although many Muslims oppose the secular agenda of the Socialists, most
Muslims wholeheartedly support Socialist multicultural dogma, which they are
leveraging to promote the Islamization of Europe.
In foreign policymaking, Socialists and Muslims
share a mutual disdain for the United States and Israel. Leftwing parties
across Europe have turned anti-Zionism into a politically correct form of
anti-Semitism. The increasingly hysterical anti-Israel rhetoric emanating from
Socialist circles has contributed to a spike in anti-Semitic
hate crimes across the continent; many of these crimes against Jews are
being perpetrated by Muslims.
Although Hollande has not articulated his views
on Israel -- he has said he wants to visit Israel and the Palestinian
territories this summer -- many observers fear that Hollande will surround
himself with a coterie of leftwing advisors who will push him to distance
France from the pro-Jewish, pro-Israel course established by Sarkozy.
Hollande has also said he is opposed to Israeli
or American military action against Iranian nuclear facilities and many
analysts believe the new French government will seek to weaken international
sanctions against Iran.
The political changes in France have many Jews
concerned about their future. On the day that French voters elected
Hollande as their new president, more than 5,000 French Jews participated in an
Aliyah (immigration of Jews to Israel) fair in Paris. The annual event,
organized and run by the Jewish Agency, usually attracts about 2,000 visitors.
To be sure, France is not the only country in
which Muslims are changing the political dynamic.
In Denmark, Socialist Prime Minister Helle
Thorning-Schmidt won the parliamentary election in September 2011 by a margin of just
8,500 votes. According to an opinion survey,
89.1% of Muslims said they would vote for Socialist or leftwing parties. There
are an estimated 200,000 Muslims in Denmark, 100,000 of whom are eligible to
vote.
In Britain, a new research report entitled,
"Degrees
of Separation: Ethnic minority voters and the Conservative Party,"
shows that 47% of Muslims say they have affinity for the Labour Party, while on
5% say they identify with the Conservatives. During the 2010 elections, Muslim
voters were the deciding factor in 82 constituencies.
In the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Muslim
voters elected the Bangladeshi-born Lutfur
Rahman as their mayor. He is linked to the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE),
an Islamist group dedicated to changing the "very infrastructure of
society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed ...
from ignorance to Islam." Since taking office, Rahman has stocked the
public libraries in Tower Hamlets with books and DVDs containing the extremist
sermons of banned Islamist preachers.
Also in Britain, Labour
Party MP Jim Fitzpatrick recently warned that his party has been
infiltrated by radical Muslims who want to create an "Islamic social and
political order" there. Muslims, he said, are "placing people within
the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to
get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence
and power, whether it's at local government level or national level." He
added: "They are completely at odds with Labour's program, with our
support for secularism."
In Belgium, Muslims now make up one-quarter of
the population of Brussels. In real terms, the number of Muslims in
Brussels -- where half of all Muslims in Belgium currently live --- has reached
300,000, meaning that the self-styled "Capital of Europe" is now the
most Islamic city in Europe.
In practical terms, Islam mobilizes more people
in Brussels than does the Roman Catholic Church, and demographers expect that
Muslims will comprise the majority of the population of Brussels by 2030.
In Belgium as a whole, new research from the Itinera
Institute forecasts that by 2060, 60% of the Belgian population will be
foreign born, which will have clear implications for Belgian politics.
In Norway, new
statistics show that immigrants will make up almost half of Oslo's
population by 2040. The study, the first ever projection of immigration trends
to be published in Norway, shows that the largest cities will also see the
biggest upsurge in immigrant numbers. In the country as a whole, the immigrant
population is expected to jump from 12% to 24%, or from 600,000 people today to
1.5 million in 2040.
In Spain, the Socialist Party recently
attempted to pass a law in parliament that would have enabled more than 500,000
Moroccans residing in Spain to vote in Spanish municipal elections. If
enacted, the measure would have ensured permanent Socialist control over all
Spanish towns and cities with significant Muslim minorities. The measure was
derailed in November 2011, when, in the general election, the Socialists were
ousted from power.
Soeren
Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based
Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics: France
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Kern
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