French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen declared on Saturday that 2017 will be the "year of the awakening of the people of continental Europe" as she joined fellow nationalist leaders in Germany at the beginning of a year of high-stakes national elections. The mood was celebratory a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as US president, following a campaign buoyed by anti-establishment and protectionist themes. "Yesterday, a new America. Today, hello Koblenz, a new Europe!" Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders said as he opened his speech at a congress center on the banks of the Rhine river, under heavy security. "The people of the West are awakening. They are throwing off the yoke of political correctness," he said. "This year will be the year of the people ... the year of liberation, the year of the patriotic spring." Wilders' Party of Freedom could win the largest percentage of votes in the March 15 Dutch parliamentary election, though it is shunned by rivals and highly unlikely to be able to form a coalition. Le Pen is among top contenders in France's April-May presidential vote. In September, Frauke Petry's four-year-old Alternative for Germany party hopes to enter the German parliament. The meeting of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group in the European Parliament also featured Matteo Salvini of Italy's Northern League and Harald Vilimsky, the general secretary of Austria's Freedom Party, which last year narrowly failed to win the country's presidency. — AP
