Hostage to Fortuyn

The Netherlands ought to be one of the toughest places in Europe for the far right to get a toehold. Prosperous and with low unemployment, tolerant and proudly multicultural, the country has long been a place where the politicians fine-tune consensus in long, well-behaved coalition talks. But into that idyll last week crashed Pim Fortuyn, 54, who rode an unapologetically anti-immigration platform to a substantial victory in local elections in Rotterdam, the country's second city, where many of the country's 800,000 Muslims live. His local party, Livable Rotterdam, won 17 out of the 45 seats in the municipal council, besting all...