Viktor Orbán sparks outrage with attack on ‘race mixing’ in Europe

Katalin Cseh, an MEP from the opposition Momentum party, said she was appalled by the prime minister's speech. "His statements recall a time I think we would all like to forget. They really show the true colours of the regime," she said.

On Twitter, Cseh addressed mixed-race people in Hungary: "Your skin colour may be different, you may come from Europe or beyond, but you are one of us, and we are proud of you. Diversity strengthens the nation, it doesn't weaken it."

On Saturday, he made frequent nods to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which claims there is a plot to dilute the white populations of the US and European countries through immigration. He said it was "an ideological trick of the internationalist left to say the European population is already mixed race".

He named demographics, migration and gender as the main battlefields of the future, on the same day that thousands of people rallied in Budapest for the city's annual Pride march.

The European Commission is currently suing Hungary over a recent anti-LGBTQ+ law, a copy of Russia's "gay propaganda" law. It bans gay people from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows aimed at minors.