Dutch far right makes gains

By Reed Stevenson

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch anti-immigrant leader Geert Wilders' success in the European Parliament election has sent a worrying signal to European Union leaders who had hoped far-right parties would not make gains.

Wilders, who also fought an anti-EU campaign, led his Freedom Party to second place in voting in the Netherlands on Thursday, according to exit polls which showed the party would have four of the 25 Dutch seats in the assembly.

A fierce opponent of Islam in European culture and the bane of many European leftists, Wilders could now have a much a louder voice in European affairs.

"We want to fight for the right to decide who can immigrate to the Netherlands and that Brussels is not the decision-making body," Wilders said late Thursday.

Wilders, 45, has led what many considered until now a fringe movement and faced prosecution for inciting hatred after saying in an anti-Islam film that the Koran causes violence.

A former health insurance worker who joined the Liberal Party before setting up the Freedom Party in 2004, he travels with bodyguards and sleeps in undisclosed locations because of death threats against him.

But he tapped anti-immigrant sentiment and hostility to Turkey joining the EU -- the Dutch rejected the EU's draft constitution in 2004 -- as well as resentment over the government's handling of the economic crisis.

His success also reflects how the traditionally liberal Dutch increasingly criticise Islam for being intolerant of gay and women's rights.