Telegraph: Fear of Islam and concern over the “Islamisation” of Europe is not a major motivation for those taking part in a series of protests that have gripped Germany in recent weeks, an academic study has found.
Tens of thousands of people have joined a series of weekly protests in the city of Dresden under the banner of Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, or Pegida.
But the first academic study of the movement found that, despite the name, fewer than a quarter of protesters questioned cited concerns over Muslims or Islam as a reason for taking part.
Instead, the chief reasons given were dissatisfaction with politics, unhappiness with the media and public opinion, and general concerns over immigration and asylum-seekers.
The study, by Dresden Technical University, found that the typical protesters is white, male, 48 years old and middle-class, with an above average income.