ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Thierry Baudet is here to stay.

The Dutch far-right leader scored a big victory earlier this year when his Forum for Democracy (FvD) party, founded just three years ago, came first in provincial elections. That made the FvD the largest party in the Dutch Senate.

Now Baudet, 36, is proving he's no flash in the pan. His party is on course to come first in the Netherlands in this week's European Parliament election, with a narrow poll lead over the Freedom and Democracy Party (VVD) of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Baudet aims to be part of a Euroskeptic surge in the election, with a disparate array of parties opposed to the EU in its current form forecast to make big gains across the Continent. Nationalists are still likely to be outnumbered by pro-EU groups and may struggle to unite around common positions. But more seats in the European Parliament would give Euroskeptics more money and resources, and more opportunities to frustrate the pro-EU parties' plans.

Baudet's success has forced Rutte, Dutch premier for the last nine years, to sit up and take notice. The two men went head-to-head on national television on Wednesday night — the eve of polling day in the Netherlands — in a debate organized after a week of mutual goading on social media.

"So I think the fundamental truth that I tell people is we have a right to exist, to be proud of our country and defend it" — Forum for Democracy leader Thierry Baudet

The high-profile duel has infuriated leaders of the eight other parties set to win seats in the vote, who were not invited to take part. ("Note: I'm available! People don't have to choose between right, and right," tweeted Labour leader Lodewijk Asscher.)

Asked at the party's final campaign rally in Rotterdam on Tuesday night why he was singled out by Rutte for a debate, Baudet told POLITICO: "Maybe he wants to see if he's still got it."

Seminar style

At the rally, the dapper and charismatic Baudet drew roaring rounds of applause from a well-heeled crowd that skewed young and male.

The mood was taboo-breaking — a joke about children's reading topics nowadays being "Ahmed is gay and bullied" got a big laugh — but with the learned overtones of a feisty undergraduate seminar.

Dropping fringe terms such as "cultural Marxism" and "oikophobia" into his speech, Baudet presented far-right tropes, such as the idea of an elitist liberal conspiracy to destroy national culture and a demographic replacement of Dutch people with immigrants, as intellectual concepts essential to enlightened political debate.

"I think the most essential truth, that not many people have spoken before me, is that we as Dutch people have the right to be proud of our nation. All our political positions follow from that," Baudet said after the event.

"Limiting immigration, smaller government, a European Union not interfering in our national matters, being proud of our history again, maintaining our own language at universities, investing more in national education programs, not transferring money from the north to the south of Europe for sins of guilt or other feelings that we do not have the right to exist anymore. So I think the fundamental truth that I tell people is we have a right to exist, to be proud of our country and defend it."

Critics see Baudet as a pseudo-intellectual whose sophisticated air masks extreme-right views, economically disastrous ideas, misogyny and policies that contravene international law. He is also openly opposed to policies to combat climate change, which he has called a modern "religion."

Green leader Jesse Klaver, whose party is polling in third place, warned against voting for Baudet and said he has a "sad old-fashioned view of men and women for a young guy."

"Anyone who thinks that Baudet's flirting with right-wing extremism is a coincidence is naive. Anyone who thinks that Baudet stands up for women's rights is wrong. Anyone who thinks that Baudet serves the interests of the Dutch will be disappointed," Klaver wrote on Twitter.

Baudet advocates an end to sanctions on Russia and is an admirer of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, who has championed the idea of an "illiberal democracy" and pursued fiercely anti-Islam and anti-migrant policies. ("I'm a great fan of your prime minister by the way," Baudet volunteered to a Hungarian journalist at the campaign event Tuesday.)

The Forum for Democracy is on course to win five seats in the European Parliament and hopes to join the European Conservatives and Reformists group — if it can overcome opposition from the Dutch Christian parties that are currently members. The group includes Britain's ruling Conservatives and Poland's governing PiS party.

The party's lead candidate in the election, Derk Jan Eppink, a self-described former "European mandarin" who quit Rutte's VVD to run for Baudet, has close links to the ECR.

Ultimately, the party aspires to hold a series of referendums to redefine the Netherlands' relationship to the EU: on the euro, on freedom of movement, and on whether to leave the EU outright. But its first priority is to obstruct any further integration, return powers to The Hague, and oppose open borders.

"Whether you go to Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium or Sweden, it's all the same issue: This election campaign will be fought on immigration," Eppink told POLITICO. "I think there will be a wave of Euroskeptic parties, even more than the current establishment thinks there will be."

Far-right tradition

In some ways the Forum for Democracy is the inheritor of the Netherlands' tradition of anti-immigration parties on the radical right, from the Pim Fortuyn List to the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders. (The Freedom Party is forecast to take one seat, and Baudet mentioned Wilders only once at the Rotterdam event, to mock his absence from the campaign.)

"I think the media is a bit on the left and not all the news about him is true" — Stanley Vanre, a Baudet supporter

Yet the Forum for Democracy differs from the Freedom Party in pitching to a wealthier demographic. Baudet styles himself as a defender of high European culture, using high-school Latin in parliament and installing a grand piano in his office.

Forum for Democracy campaign videos present the established parties of the right as the main political antagonists, casting Rutte's VVD and the Christian Democratic Appeal as secret Europhiles who will bring about a "European superstate." On stage, Baudet performed an imitation of a robotic Rutte and joked that so many VVD voters were defecting that the Forum for Democracy would have to open a "switching service."

Baudet has dominated the campaign in the final week before the vote by flirting with extremism to generate criticism and media coverage, while leaving just enough room to deny he intended to cross the line of acceptability.

On Friday he tweeted a video that had been circulated by white nationalist accounts, which showed women accusing immigrants of sexual assault, and politicians of failing to protect women by closing borders. It ended with a play on words referring to the Holocaust, stamped over images of rival Dutch politicians.

On Monday, Baudet shared an essay he wrote for a conservative U.S. magazine. Couched as a review of the works of French author Michel Houellebecq, the essay stated that the demographic decline of Europe is the "inevitable result" of women being encouraged to pursue careers and reject traditional gender roles, and it appeared to be critical of abortion.

Baudet told POLITICO the subsequent outcry was "ridiculous" and "a clear attempt at demonization" by the media.

"It certainly is the case that when a society does not reproduce in sufficient numbers to maintain itself, then either the economy is going to experience a very deep decline, or you're going to have to compensate for that loss in reproduction rates by immigration, which is a very destructive force for your national culture," Baudet said. "So either way, you're going to end up in trouble."

In Rotterdam, his appeal to young men was evident, as largely male groups of students in their early 20s queued to gain entry to the event and for a chance to meet Baudet afterward.

"I think the media is a bit on the left and not all the news about him is true," declared Stanley Vanre, a 20-year-old business student who said he has supported Baudet since he was old enough to vote.