FOX News visited one of those neighborhoods, called Molenbeek, which looks more like North Africa than the heart of Europe.
A clash of civilizations may be taking place on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it’s also happening a lot more quietly in European cities.
OldEurope’s population is dwindling even as immigration and high birthrates among Muslim groups are swelling in cities all over the continent.
And in Belgium, it is no different.
FilipDewinter, a leader of the far-right separatist party Vlaams Belang,predicts there will eventually be a kind of civil war when the longtimeresidents of Brussels — the nation’s capital and administrative seat ofthe European Union — realize their city is about to be taken over byMuslim immigrants.
Althoughthere are no official statistics on how many Muslims live in Brussels,it is believed they make up about 25 percent of the city’s 1 millionurban residents. Dewinter, who opposes immigration and has calledIslamophobia a “duty,” claims three of the 19 sections of Brussels,each with its own mayor, now have Muslim majorities.
“In those neighborhoods it’snot our government that’s in power,” he said, “but the Muslimauthorities — the mosques, the imams — who are in charge.”
FOX News visited one of those neighborhoods, called Molenbeek, which looks more like North Africa than the heart of Europe.
Forsome Belgians, that’s not a problem. The mayor of Molenbeek, SocialistPhilippe Moureaux, has worked hard to help Muslims try to integrateover the past decade and a half.
Moureauxbelieves multiculturalism is a good thing. He says even those whodisagree with him should get used to life as it is in Brussels today:”Be realistic. They’re here. They’re relatively numerous and they’regrowing.”