Populist far-right politician Geert Wilders has said Islam is a threat to European values and is incompatible with freedom.

"Dutch values are based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism. Islam and freedom are not compatible," Mr Wilders, 53, told USA Today.

"You see it in almost every country where it dominates. There is a total lack of freedom, civil society, rule of law, middle class; journalists, gays, apostates they are all in trouble in those places. And we import it."

Geert Wilders: 'I will never be silent'

The leader of the one-man Freedom Party (PVV) recently reiterated his controversial statements on Moroccan immigrants to the Netherlands, calling them "Moroccan scum".

Once again not all are scum but there is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland who makes the streets unsafe, mostly young people, he said.

If you want to regain your country, if you want to make the Netherlands for the people of the Netherlands, your own home again, then you can only vote for one party.

His party is riding high in Dutch polls three weeks ahead of the national elections.

Even if his party comes first it is unlikely to be able to form a government without a coalition with other parties, most of which have ruled out the possibility.

However, Mr Wilders told USA Today: "Even if I lose this election, the genie will not go back in the bottle again.

"People are fed up with the combination of mass immigration, Islamisation and austerity measures that require us to cut pensions and support for health care and the elderly while giving [bailout] money to Greece and the eurozone."

He added: "On Islam, it is true that I am tough. Perhaps tougher than I should be if my only aim was to get votes.

"But I really believe in what I say, that the Islamic ideology is this huge threat."

Mr Wilders has pledged to ban Muslim immigration, close all mosques and take the Netherlands out of the EU.

His Freedom Party and Prime Minister Mark Rutte's liberal people's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) are currently neck and neck according to the latest polls.

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Geert Wilders: Far-right Dutch PM frontrunner says 'Islam and freedom are not compatible' - The Independent