Belgian Senator Alain Destexhe has questioned whether major terrorist attacks, like the Bataclan massacre in Paris or the Brussels airport bombing, would have occurred if the migrant crisis of 2015 had never happened.
Senator Destexhe also criticised the Belgian government for allowing the rise of parallel Islamic radical communities in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro.
Speaking on the subject of Belgian radical Islamic terrorist Salah Abdeslam, who took part in the 2015 Bataclan massacre and was recently convicted in a Belgian court for shooting at police officers prior to his arrest, Destexhe said: “Ten of the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris and Brussels arrived in Europe via the flow of migrants, most of whom were helped by Abdeslam.”
“One can seriously ask, and I weigh my words, if the attacks of Paris and Brussels would have taken place without the waves of massive migration of the year 2015,” he added.
Destexhe then spoke about the responsibility of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the migrant crisis saying: “The German Chancellor is therefore directly responsible for the arrival of a million migrants, and soon several million more thanks to family reunification against which we can hardly do anything as so much jurisprudence of the ECHR locks this subject.”
“She is responsible for the rise of anti-Semitism caused by this massive immigration, which has seen people who have often grown up in environments clearly hostile to Jews,” he added echoing statements made by French fashion mogul Karl Lagerfeld late last year.
The Belgian senator also blamed Merkel for the rise of populist parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and for the Brexit vote in the summer of 2016. “The record of Angela Merkel for Europe is, in many ways, disastrous,” he said.
Destexhe was also critical of the Belgian government who he accused of being “naive” and allowing migrant-heavy Muslim ghettos like Molenbeek in Brussels to become centres of Islamic radicalism.
In Molenbeek, according to Destexhe, “The Holocaust is no longer always taught in school, even though it is part of the school curriculum,” and added: “In some neighbourhoods, Islam is becoming the majority religion. In public school, where students must choose a religion class, 49 per cent of them choose the course on Islam.”