Polish Politicians Attack Migrants for Electoral Gain
Donald Tusk employs anti-migrant rhetoric to align with the tone of the ruling Law and Justice party, while attacks on migrants in Poland carry significant electoral weight.
This is reported by Politico.
The ruling nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) and the centrist opposition led by former President of the European Council Donald Tusk are stoking concerns over Muslim immigrants ahead of this autumn's parliamentary elections.
PiS has been focusing on this issue over the past few weeks. The government has opposed the EU's migrant relocation deal, which has sparked anger among most member states and the European Commission. The party's leader and de facto ruler of the country, Jarosław Kaczyński, has called for a referendum on the matter alongside the elections.
"We will not agree to it. The Polish people also do not agree," Kaczyński said during a rally on Saturday, referring to the EU relocation plan.
This is an attempt to replicate the scenario that helped the party gain power in the elections held during the peak of the migration crisis in the EU in 2015. At that time, Kaczyński ominously warned that the migrants arriving in Europe were carrying "all sorts of parasites." He criticized the government led by Tusk's Civic Platform party for agreeing to accept some asylum seekers under the EU plan.
However, this year Tusk is pushing back, using words straight from the PiS playbook.
In a series of viral social media videos earlier this month, Tusk warned that PiS was trying to divert public attention by condemning the EU's migration plan, which effectively does not involve the arrival of people in Poland, opening the doors to mass migration from Muslim countries.
Tusk began by referencing the unrest in France, echoing the same talking points used by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at last month's EU leaders' summit on the migration issue. In response to the French riots, Morawiecki tweeted about the unrest and said, "We don't want such scenes in any city in Europe... Stop illegal migration. Security first."
Speaking about the unrest in France, Tusk said that Kaczyński was "preparing a document that will allow an even larger number of people to come from countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan." He went on to accuse the government of bringing in 130,000 people from these countries last year, 50 times more than when Tusk's party was in power in 2015.
As reported by The Gaze, French President Emmanuel Macron blamed TikTok, Snapchat, and video games for inciting the massive riots that swept across France after police shot and killed a 17-year-old delivery driver.