Leaders in Belgium, France, and Italy are dealing with the aftermath of New Year’s holiday riots that resulted in torched cars, vandalized properties, beleaguered police and terrorized locals and tourists. News outlets have largely refrained from identifying the people responsible for the unrest, but politicians and commentators are attributing the violence to decades worth of unchecked immigration from Muslim-majority countries. In response to the violence, some commentators have taken to social media to call for the repatriation of immigrants.
We were there to help, and we were getting Molotov cocktails thrown at us.
The wholesale mayhem—which specifically targeted police officials, firefighters, and medical emergency services—comes days after Pope Leo XIV warned that European fears of Muslim migrants are “oftentimes generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race.”
Hungary and Poland avoided civil disorder, primarily due to their strict ban on mass migration from Muslim-majority countries. Leading Hungarian politicians claimed their strict immigration policies had been justified.
Unrest in Amsterdam
The unrest was particularly evident during New Year’s celebrations in the Netherlands where the head of the Dutch Police Union, Nine Kooiman, reported an “unprecedented amount of violence against police and emergency services” across the country over New Year’s Eve. Kooiman said she had been pelted three times by fireworks and other explosives as she worked a shift in Amsterdam. Police in Amsterdam alone arrested 52 people for various offenses on New Year’s Eve. Ambulance services were dispatched 275 times, and the fire brigade over 300 times. In the southern city of Breda, migrants threw petrol bombs at police.
Police used tear gas and arrested more than 100 people in Antwerp, where minors as young as 10 and 11 targeted officers and emergency services with fireworks and stones, setting fire to bikes, cars, and rubbish bins. During the mayhem, the Vondelkerk, a historic church building in Amsterdam, burnt to the ground. Numerous news outlets report that the cause of the fire is unknown. A ban unofficial fireworks is due to come into force in 2026.
In the Dutch town of Maarssen, Muslim youths filmed themselves breaking into a retirement home and launching a large firework bomb into the lobby. The shattered glass on several floors exposed the elderly residents to the sub-freezing temperatures outside.
In response to the mayhem, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders posted a video on X showing Syrian migrants posing with a Syrian flag. He wrote: “Syrians overtake our national monument in Amsterdam. Send them all back to Syria!”
Problems in Belgium
In Brussels, migrants attacked police, emergency services, and staff from transport operator STIB with fireworks and Molotov cocktails during their operations. Police said that trams, buses, and street furniture were also damaged, alongside reports of Molotov cocktails and explosive devices discovered in multiple locations. One video on X shows hooded individuals, apparently Moroccans, carrying assault rifles while riding a scooter in the Belgian capital.
Police arrested 159 people in the Belgian capital. At least 60 cars were burned. There were more than 1,700 incidents across the city. “It was really crazy,” Brussels Fire Department spokesperson Walter Derieuw said. “We were there to help, and we were getting Molotov cocktails thrown at us.”
Much of the unrest took place in the western and southern districts of Brussels, including the communes of Molenbeek and Anderlecht, which are dominated by predominantly Muslim migrants of Moroccan and Turkish origin.
Tovaglieri Calls for Remigration of ‘New Italians’
Based on the violence from recent years, Italian police closed the famous piazza outside the cathedral in Milan to prevent mayhem. However, migrant mobs brawled with each other outside the cathedral in Florence, destroying chairs and tables from cafes and restaurants.
“In many Italian cities, violence is being recorded from the so-called ‘new Italians.’ For how much longer will we have to be afraid to go out and celebrate with friends because of violent and uncivilized immigrants? Remigration can no longer wait,” Italian Member of the European Parliament, Isabella Tovaglieri, insisted.
Concert Cancelled in France, Mayhem in Germany
French authorities cancelled the annual midnight concert on the Champs-Élysées, citing security concerns, and replaced it with a pre-recorded broadcast to be watched at home. 1,173 cars were torched across the country during New Year’s Eve. Police arrested 505 people nationwide.
In Berlin, Hamburg, and the Ruhr, police and firefighters were targeted with fireworks at close range. Much of the violence was concentrated in areas with high levels of Muslim immigration, mainly of Arab origin. Germany has witnessed similar rioting on New Year’s Eve since 2012, with rioters displaying “unprecedented aggressiveness” and “by their numerous deliberate and coordinated attempts to target emergency service workers, including by luring them into ambushes.”
Hungarian Leaders Explain Link Between Islamic Migration and Riots
Balázs Orbán, the political director of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, blamed Muslim migrants for the unprecedented New Year’s Eve violence. “What happened in Berlin on New Year’s Eve is something we are increasingly witnessing on the streets of major Western European cities: a migration-based public order breakdown,” he wrote.
“This wasn’t random chaos. It was the predictable result of years of mass migration, weak enforcement, and political denial,” the parliamentarian stressed, warning that “the pressure for mass migration comes from Brussels — which is pushing relocation quotas, softer borders, and ideological migration policies.”
“Hungarians can be certain that as long as Hungary has a national government, Hungary will not become a country of mass immigration — so they can walk their streets and enjoy the holidays freely and safely,” Orbán noted.
Speaking on TV2’s Mokka program on January 5, György Bakondi, Chief Domestic Security Advisor to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, explained that the problem lies in the fact that the mostly Muslim migrants are either unable or unwilling to integrate into Western societies.
“This was not at all some random occurrence of disorder. It was definitely not ‘youth excess.’ It was not a fireworks problem by any means. Rather, it was the predictable outcome of mass immigration combined with failed integration, cultural fragmentation, and a political refusal to confront the role of Islam in shaping a parallel social ethos,” analyst Konstantinos Bogdanos wrote in the Brussels Signal.
‘Islamists Exploit Breakdown’
“What we witnessed on New Year’s Eve—mobs attacking police and emergency workers, and cities forced into a posture of siege—should end the indulgent habit of treating public order as optional,” Catherine Perez-Shakdam, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI). Perez-Shakdam, executive director of the Forum for Foreign Relations, warned that government officials need to do a better job of enforcing the law.
“Islamists, like all ideologues, thrive in such fog: they do not create every riot, but they are always ready to exploit the breakdown—recruiting, intimidating, and setting neighbor against neighbor while respectable people search for sociological alibis,” she said, adding that “a society that will not enforce justice invites the next, worse night of lawlessness.”
