A/50/476 English Page 22 portraying immigration from outside Europe as the root of all evil. The unprecedented support obtained by the Front National in local elections and their election victories in three major French towns, 19/ reflect the normalization of this form of populism, which is founded on the concept of "national preference" and which, in private, is perfectly willing to espouse fascist values that had been thought to be a thing of the past. 55. In Germany, Almuth Berger, the Commissioner for the Concerns of Foreigners of Land Brandenburg, has remarked that there is increasing ignorance, prejudice and fear directed against foreigners living in the new federal German State. He particularly notes that opinion polls have shown that the citizens of Brandenburg are convinced that the immigrant population makes up 30 per cent of the total population of the State, whereas in reality they account for only 1.2 per cent. The citizens of the older Länder have, however, a less exaggerated view. Here again, in order to understand the phenomenon of xenophobia, it should be noted that, relative to the overall numbers of the immigrant population, the greatest number of the most serious racist acts are committed in the new Länder. 56. In Mellendorf, Germany, on 8 January 1995, four Serbian asylum-seekers (a 24-year-old woman and three of her children) were killed in a terrorist attack, and 11 other people were injured. The police, however, did not consider it a racist act. In February 1995, in Arnsberg, just after the Minister of the Interior had announced that there had been a decrease in racist attacks in 1994, a number of mobile homes inhabited by refugees were destroyed by fire, and one person was injured. 20/ B. Roma, Gypsies or the travellers 57. The Roma, Gypsies or travellers are a minority that has been strongly affected by racist phenomena. Four of them, for example, were killed on 5 February 1995 in Oberwart, Austria, while attempting to remove a sign loaded with explosives and bearing the message "Gypsies, go back to India". According to the front page of the newspaper Le Monde dated 24 February 1995, the police apparently attributed the incident to a settling of accounts among Gypsies, thus giving the presumed perpetrators the time to elude detection. 58. In Italy, a Rom from the former Yugoslavia, Naser Hasani, lodged a complaint against police officers who allegedly arrested him while he was at the steering wheel of his automobile in the centre of Florence, took him to Le Cascine park on the outskirts of the city and then kicked him and beat him with a hammer found in the vehicle and uttered racist insults to him. 21/ 59. In Romania, a sizeable Gypsy community estimated at more than 450,000 persons (according to some sources, it might be close to 2 million) encounters racism and discrimination on a daily basis. Amnesty International believes that at least three Roma were imprisoned because of their ethnic origin. A woman from Haradeni was allegedly arrested and jailed for two days after complaining of ill-treatment by the police. "Racial prejudice and neglect of the needs of the Roma community are evident not only in Romania, but throughout the region". 22/ /...