For more than a week, we have seen increasingly disturbing images from France and elsewhere in Europe: burning town halls, looted shops and brutal violence.

What has been portrayed as “student protests” increasingly resembles scenes from a civil war.

Behind the mob, there is an uncanny alliance: well-organised left-wing extremists and political Islam. Two movements that could hardly be more different - but united in their rejection of our free and open society.

Both are enemies of the Enlightenment. The far left likes to present itself as its guardian. Yet it marches side by side with those who reject freedom of speech and everything a liberal society stands for.

Beyond the violence itself, what is most shocking is the unwillingness to acknowledge what is happening, or even the apparent attempt to conceal the truth by many.

The violence we are witnessing has nothing to do with legitimate student protest. To me, these scenes reflect the consequences of nearly two decades of failed migration policy.

Unless we change course immediately, we risk seeing the same scenes soon in Berlin, Vienna and Munich.
For years, Hungary and other Central European countries have faced harsh criticism from their Western European neighbours over their approach to migration. Today, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague stand out as islands of calm.