World reaction to Donald Trump's proposal banning Muslims: Befuddlement

Charles Grant, the director of the CER said Mr Trump was anathema to many Europeans because his populism had edged toward fascism and conveyed a willingness to preach an open hatred of religious minorities that many far-right leaders, from Ms. Le Pen in France to Nigel Farage of the euroskeptic UK Independence Party in Britain, tried to temper as they fought to move their parties into the political mainstream.

Mr Grant added that Mr Trump conveyed an ignorance of world affairs that Europeans found hard to stomach from a contender in a national election in the United States.

"Donald Trump strikes me as a very different kind of populist right-winger than the kind we've grown used to in Europe in that he shows a complete ignorance about the world," Mr Grant said. "While Le Pen and others may say things that are alarmist, they at least acknowledge the premise of religious tolerance we've had in Europe since the 18th-century Enlightenment."