Heinz-Christian Strache is the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ). He attended the party congress of the Front National in Lyon a week ago (November 29-30, 2014), along with leaders of other European anti-immigration parties.

Below is the speech given by Mr. Strache at the event. Many thanks to Rembrandt Clancy for translating and subtitling this video:

Speech of Heinz-Christian Strache at the Fifteenth Congress of the National Front in Lyon

Source (video): XVème Congrès du Front National à Lyon: Interventions des chefs de partis alliés en Europe

Translation by Rembrandt Clancy

Bonjour Lyon, Bonjour Front National, Bonjour Marine, Bonjour Jean-Marie Le Pen, Chers Amis, Vive la France!

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is my pleasure to be here today at your Party Congress in Lyon, in this place steeped in history, a place which is a symbol not only of the variety and beauty of France and Europe, but also a place symbolic of the threats facing our venerable and proud continent today. After all, Lyon was destroyed in 725 by the advancing Arabian armies, whose successors today are rampaging in Iraq and Syria.

Your current Congress is yet another clear symbol for the upswing and for the strength, which the patriotic parties of Europe have now achieved. In the EU elections of May 2014, the National Front became the strongest party in France with almost 25 percent of the vote, and the Freedom Party achieved almost 20 percent of the vote in Austria. We are currently the strongest party according to the polls; and who knows, then perhaps in a few years, I too, as the Austrian Federal Chancellor, may welcome the future French President, Marine Le Penn, in Austria; for the people in Europe are becoming ever more deeply opposed to the current path of the political leaders and opinion shapers. Naturally that is not happening without a reason.

On the one hand we have the Left running amok, which is profoundly opposed to our fundamental values and which advocate mass immigration, opinion terrorism and such madness as gender mainstreaming and homosexual marriage. On the other hand, we have fainthearted conservatives who betray their own values almost daily; and with their Realpolitik, they have long since accommodated themselves to the Left. Both hold in common the unconditional submission to the diktat of the European Union and to the United States of America. And this is seen, for example, in the Free Trade Agreement (TTIP) by which the European people will be rendered virtually incapable of economic self-management. And it may be seen in the action against Russia, where the EU exclusively follows the stipulations of the USA and behaves as if it has long since been the 51st American state.

In addition there is the mass immigration. But a peaceful coexistence is not possible for the great European family of nations unless a modicum of cultural commonality and mutual respect prevails.

We reject ingratiating other cultures, whether from a false understanding of tolerance or from cowardice. For it has been the experience of those affected, that ingratiation leads not to gratitude and esteem, but on the contrary, to even greater contempt toward the hosts who are experienced as decadent.

The ever more audacious demands from Muslim sphere, which compliant Gutmenschen offer an increasingly broader scope, form a vicious circle which must be broken as long as it is still possible.

And I say that precisely this situation carries the utmost significance for our parties, because the rise of Europe’s patriotic parties does not represent a national phenomenon, rather it is a pan-European development. And ultimately, it is we who are the only alternative to the political establishment; it is we who are fighting for a different policy, which is aligned to the interests of the historically indigenous, European people, for we are the only genuine Europeans. We stand for the values which have made our continent grand and significant. We know that Europe is more than the project of the European Union, which is degenerating more and more into a centralised straitjacket.

All of us are pursuing a common objective; namely, the protection of the historically indigenous identity of the European people, who are in the pincer grip of an unbridled mass immigration from culturally foreign regions and of a homogenising globalisation after the American model.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Our two parties are now uniting together in a long-standing friendship, which we shall also continue to deepen in the future. This friendship results from the fact that we love our own people and therefore we are also able to meet respectfully eye-to-eye; for only those who love their own people are able to respect and love other people also.

In this spirit: Chère Marine, la prochaine Madam President de la France: Bonne chance! Vive la France! Vive la Grande Nation! Vive le Front National! J’aime la France.