(Reuters) The head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party stuck to his guns on Wednesday over a racially charged claim that Austrians risk becoming a minority in their own country, straining relations in the ruling coalition ahead of this month’s European elections.
Last week, Freedom Party (FPO) leader and Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said his party was fighting against “population exchange.”
“These terms that you mention, the Freedom Party of Austria has always used them, for decades,” Strache told a news conference when asked about his comment.
“Many citizens rightly say these are political decisions — the extent to which one wants to continue to allow immigration on a massive scale, the extent to which demographic development then leads to a situation where an ancestral population becomes a minority, and many do not want that,” Strache said.
