Following a football match, rioters in Paris went on a rampage in the French capital, looting shops setting cars on fire, attacking, even firing at police officers. Videos and television footage showed that many rioters had an immigrant background. It is a scene Europeans have become all too familiar with – not just in France, but all over the continent.

In the past decades, Europe’s ruling elites have allowed millions of immigrants from Africa and the Islamic world to settle in our midst. Some of them hate their host country to the extent that they want to destroy it. They loot and vandalize, assault and rape, and even murder.

Leading politicians – such as Emmanuel Macron in France, Rob Jetten in my own Netherlands, Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels, and many others in their ivory towers – think that people do not notice what is going on. But they do notice, and they are deeply worried. They want the chaos to stop. They also realize the root cause of our societal break-down: Mass immigration by people who contribute absolutely nothing to our societies and reject our cultural values.

While our cities begin to resemble war zones, our governments continue their march of folly. In my country, the authorities want to force literally every municipality in the Netherlands to house a quota of asylum seekers. These fortune seekers, many of whom are young men, are being lodged in hotels, holiday resorts, former schools, former army barracks, even on cruise ships.

I have called on the Dutch people to resist – firmly, but always in a non-violent manner – the establishment of centres for asylum seekers in their neighbourhoods. I have recently begun a nation-wider resistance tour, visiting local communities where the authorities are planning new asylum centres.

The response has been overwhelming. The mainstream media do not report on the protests because the demonstrators are peaceful and law-abiding.

It is not our people who go rampaging in the streets, ravaging their neighbourhoods! We are not conquerors like the thugs in the streets of Paris; we defend our homes. We do not destroy our communities; we love them. We do not loot our neighbours; we protect them. We do not harass and attack our women; we stand up for them.

It all boils down to the culture of love that drives the patriots defending Europe, versus the culture of hatred that drives those eager to destroy it.

Societies cannot exist without a shared set of moral values. Since the 1970s, governments, aided by supranational organizations such as the EU and various U.N. bodies, have begun to impose a doctrine of relativism and multi-culturalism, opening Europe’s doors to literally millions of foreigners who have little in common with us. As a result, Europe has slowly transformed into Eurabia.

No one can deny that the neighbourhoods with the largest concentrations of Islamic newcomers are the most prone to violence. Mass immigration by people from cultures that have not been shaped by the basic forces of European civilization has eaten away at law and order, the foundation of our free societies.

Mass immigration has also created a new electorate for political parties. The “mainstream” parties actively search for the Islamic vote. This phenomenon has become increasingly important because the Islamic population has continuously grown, thereby becoming a power broker in elections. Political parties compete with each other by giving in to Islamic demands, such as an anti-Israeli foreign policy, the prosecution of so-called “Islamophobic” individuals, and the abandonment of entire neighbourhoods to Islamic gangs, which the police are instructed not to “provoke.”

It is urgent that patriotic politicians organize a national wave of peaceful resistance. We demand an immediate asylum stop, encouragement of remigration, and compulsory remigration of criminal migrants. Europe is still ours. If we want to keep it that way, we have to rise up en masse. Non-violently but firmly and with determination, we have to reclaim our streets. If we do, we can still win. The time to act is now.

Geert Wilders MP is the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) and Vice-President of the Dutch Parliament.