Sweden's National Democrat party has announced plans to open a number of pre-schools for ethnic Swedish children only

The Local:

The Local spoke to party leader Marc Abramsson to find out why he believes that Sweden needs racially pure kindergartens.

"It is very important that we can build up a safe and Swedish environment for our children. They can have the best possible start in life by growing up with Swedish culture," he said.

If sent to a pre-school with a multi-cultural flavour, Abramsson believed that Swedish kids risked emerging with "low self-esteem and lacking an ethnic identity".

According to the National Democrat leader, Sweden resembles eastern Europe under communism, "where they used school to indoctrinate the children."

As an example, he suggested that politicians "promoted homosexuals' right to adopt".

It is worth noting that Marc Abramsson has a history of intolerance when it comes to gay rights.

In 2004 nine members of the party were brought to court following an assault on functionaries at the previous summer's Gay Pride Festival in Stockholm. Abramsson was sentenced to four months in prison for his part in the attack.

"We want to instill children with Swedish values, nationalistic values. We want them to value more things than just earning money, such as honour and respect," he said.

Asked whether he would support the creation of, say, ethnic Somali pre-schools, Abramsson replied: "Absolutely, they also need to struggle to preserve their culture."

But, being an anti-immigration party, there was a catch.

"They should learn about their culture and then move back there," said Abramsson.

For followers of the National Democrats' world view, immigration is at the root of most of Sweden's problems.

"We need to stop mass immigration right away. The problems are soon getting out of control," said Abramsson, adding that his party would be doing immigrants a favour - even second and third generation immigrants - by trying to get them to leave.

"We should help people return to their own countries. Even if they have been here a long time they still have their own identity and many of them want to go back to their own culture," said Abramsson.

Good for Marc Abramsson! Europe needs more political leaders like him.