Within the right-wing populist party Forum for Democracy, “an intimidating, toxic and unsafe working atmosphere” has prevailed for years. For example, party leader Thierry Baudet is said to have thrown empty bottles, sent porn videos and racist apps and intimidated people with sky-high fines. That writes It AD Friday evening based on conversations with former employees and hundreds of pages of documents.
Former FVD members Eva Vlaardingerbroek, Nicki Pouw-Verweij and Henk Otten, among others, were fined from 10,000 to 170,000 euros because they allegedly violated a confidentiality clause. In none of the cases was any actual payment made. Others told about how Baudet threw empty wine bottles past an employee who was leading an investigation into racist and anti-Semitic expressions within the youth branch of FVD during a dinner party. Lots of people who do AD spoke, cited Baudet’s excessive alcohol consumption as the reason for an unsafe working atmosphere.
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Baudet also sent a female employee a porn video and he regularly made racist and sexist statements. He is also said to have often had outbursts of anger and publicly humiliated people. In a reaction, Baudet denies throwing bottles and coming across as intimidating.
It is not the first time that internal disturbances have occurred at the Forum for Democracy. Many members left the party because of racist, sexist and anti-Semitic statements by Baudet and other FVD MPs. Part of this founded JA21, which later more former FVD members joined. Since the corona pandemic broke out, Baudet started to spread more and more conspiracy theories, after which members again canceled their support. In addition, the party leader continues to glorify Russian President Vladimir Putin and defends the Russian invasion of Ukraine.