In the ceremony hall of Quinta de Salmanha (Figueira da Foz), in Portugal, no “long live the newlyweds!” was heard this Saturday. Repeated shouts of “reconquest” and “reemigration” were heard. There was no cake, no future spouses. What were 480 far-right extremists from all over Europe, self-styled patriots, some with crosses hanging and nationalist emblems pinned to the lapel of their suits, those indeed, daytime wedding suits, celebrating?
The hall, 140 kilometers from Porto and whose location was revealed the day before to avoid possible disturbances, hosted the second European summit on reemigration, a neologism coined by the ultras to refer to the mass deportation of immigrants, even European citizens of ethnic origin (no one mentioned the word “race” there) “non-European” or at least “non-Western” who do not comply with certain cultural precepts. The novelty of this edition is that the summit had representation from Vox: deputy Rocío de Meer, standard-bearer of reemigration: the one who spoke openly for the first time about deporting seven or eight million people of foreign origin, including second-generation immigrants. The presence of her colleague Carlos Hernández Quero was announced, but he did not appear in the end.
The activists gathered in Portugal are in a hurry because “nations can die,” warned deputy De Meer before her colleagues from the rest of Europe. “Spain cannot bear one more entry, neither legal nor illegal, from any continent, from Africa or South America,” she emphasized. Her speech was in line with other representatives of the European far right who, like her, have urged action now.
“The day will come when no European will have a country to live in,” warned Max Märkl, a German activist who sent a video lamenting that the authorities in his country did not let him fly to Porto. At the moment, eliciting fervent applause from the audience, he appeared in the room after driving from Germany to Portugal through a borderless Europe.
The Belgian Dries Van Langenhove, founder of Schild & Vrienden and sentenced to one year in prison for spreading hate messages in the chats of that organization, defended measures for those he calls “European natives” and promised Dutch parliamentarian Lidewij de Vos, who announced her pregnancy at the summit: “We will fight for your baby in your womb.”
“In Germany, with one of the greatest guilt of whites, we have a party that defends remigration and is supported by 26% of the population,” says Italian far-right writer Andrea Ballarati. “Let them call us racists, let them call us fascists, let them call us xenophobes, we no longer care,” cheers the host and leader of Reconquista, Afonso Gonçalves. He addresses the same activists who despise the blue flag with 12 stars and denounce Brussels as a bureaucratic machine devoted to multiculturalism, who spend Saturday with eurodance music playing in the background and the proclamations of political superstars (some with zero seats, like Gonçalves, but with 200,000 followers on Instagram), filling their mouths with another word: Europe.
Portuguese, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Spaniards, Swiss and some Americans invited as stars have found a goal that they already elevate to pan-European (and American, as long as Trump rules there). These ultranationalists, at 45 euros for the cheapest ticket, do not share language, party or nation, but they do share a driving idea: summary mass deportations.
Against the idea of the founders of the European Union of a community based on integration, in the Portuguese city they propose another united by the expulsion of immigrants and people of non-European ethnic origin who do not comply with certain cultural traditions.
The new flag of (this) Europe does not have the blue or yellow of its twelve stars, but the white color of the skin of speakers and attendees. On the buses that transported most of them from Porto, a Barcelonan greets a German with a Spanish father with a “Long live Franco!”. Then he asks where another passenger is from. “Italian, but I live in Barcelona.” “Long live il Duce!”, he shouts to him and immediately adds: “I have to recommend a school for your children.”
“The US is the last heir of Rome and New York is our Constantinople,” emphasized Stefano Forte in Resum26, a New Yorker of Italian origin who presides over the Republican Youth Club and laments that in 40% of the households in his city English is not spoken.
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It is a matter of “survival,” another word repeated to exhaustion, of a Europe that, thanks to mass deportations, “will be great again” (word of Stefano Forte), because “our existence is not negotiable (…) because we have the right to our homeland,” said Lena Kotré, a deputy in Brandenburg from AfD. Because, says Gonçalves (with a jab included at the absence from the event of the ultra party Chega), “our people have become a minority,” something that the Spanish De Meer raised for the future: “Europeans will be a minority.” Moreover: “Disappearing is a real possibility for Europe.” That Europe that is “of the Crusades” and “the missions,” with a Spain that “cannot deny its Christian soul.”
“Reemigration is the only solution for countries,” said Gonçalves, a friend of historical metaphors that go back to the so-called Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula and the overseas feats of glorious Portugal. The German Kotré was more specific: “Children have to be able to openly talk about reemigration with their classmate Mohamed [overflowing laughter] and say they want to become police officers to deport migrants [applause].”
Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a popular activist for white Europe from the Netherlands, who is banned from entering the United Kingdom for her hate speech, received an award and the biggest ovation from the audience after her name was announced. “We have managed to put reemigration at the center of the debate,” she congratulated herself. “It is time to act,” she proclaimed, while inviting attendees to stand up and sign the “Save Europe Act,” a new moratorium petition to halt study and family reunification visas, strengthen the European external border physically and technologically, accelerate expulsions, apply “national priority” and defend the “ethnic continuity” of “ancestral homelands.”
So many people from the audience approached the stage to sign that the master of ceremonies reminded that the request to stand was only “symbolic” and they could do it online.
In the most far-right wedding hall in Europe (paraphrasing one of the organizers, the Austrian Martin Sellner) a peculiar version of “if you can, do it” was heard. “We have to provoke an exit effect in every place where we have the possibility to do so,” he encouraged. “Charity in the Christian tradition has never meant disorder,” he said almost syllabically. “Your first neighbor is your compatriot.” A new way to bring “national priority” to the fore.
What can white Europeans worried about their disappearance do besides signing petitions in person or online? Cyan Quinn, director of the White Papers Policy Institute, a US think tank that supports mass deportations, denounced baby-check policies because they are “inflationary.” Low birth rate is a big problem, but it turns out immigrants cannot have the children. “We cannot restore our civilization with the children of others,” she said quoting former Republican congressman Steve King. So? Let’s see. “There is a correlation between marriage and birth rate.” A “male breadwinner economy” must be promoted, something like an economy where men earn the bread. Because women, says Quinn, “desire more children than they actually have.” “Traditional societies have higher birth rates,” she insisted. Examples? “Egypt and Nigeria.”
Reemigration is “the only issue” on which Europe and the US agree
Welcomed as if he were a pop icon, Greg Bovino, the feared Border Patrol chief appointed by Trump and replaced in January, said that reemigration is the “only issue” on which the US and Europe agree. “These things don’t need to be learned twice.” Europe should take it as valid, he assured, with the example of what ICE has achieved in the US.
Outside the room, in the exhibitors’ area, near the tables with trays of bread with chorizo and fries, a German ultra association gives away pins with an eagle. A Portuguese publisher even charges for its flyers. More and more attendees go outside for fresh air because the atmosphere inside has heated up. There is a strange unanimity in a round table where tricks to avoid being banned on social networks are shared. “George Floyd died because he was a criminal,” states activist Lorenzo Caccialupi. Ovation. “White lives matter!”, repeats here, as he did in the European Parliament, Slovak ultra deputy Milan Mazarek. New ovation. The architect of the movement, Austrian activist Sellner, announces that they will become a lobby with nine million pro-deportation ambassadors: “To be powerful, you have to be dangerous.” At this point of the great European far-right wedding, many American flags already hang from the backs of the very white chairs.
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