(Reuters) Austrian far-right leader Heinz-Christian Strache has asked voters to support his Freedom Party (FPO) in European Parliament elections and help counter migration flows that he called an unwanted “population exchange.”
The comment by Strache, vice-chancellor in conservative Sebastian Kurz’s government, follows the resignation this week of a local FPO official who likened migrants to rats and a row with public broadcaster ORF over an anti-immigrant party poster.
Strache told the Krone newspaper such controversies could actually play into the FPO’s hands ahead of EU elections in May.
“We are consistently following the path for our Austrian homeland, the fight against population exchange, as people expect of us,” he was quoted as saying.
