French far right leader Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen sparked uproar on the streets of Brussels and in the European Parliament today without uttering a single word about the European Union he despises.
To the dismay of hundreds of journalists expecting to hear his anti-EU tirade, Mr Le Pen cancelled a news conference after several deputies of the European Parliament entered the press room with placards reading "Stop the Nazis!"
Outside the building, Belgian riot police armed with water cannon faced off against several hundred demonstrators also keen to register their protest against Mr Le Pen, whose shock success in last Sunday's first round of the French presidential election has stunned Europe. Despite the high tension, police reported no violence.
"We planned a press conference, not a political meeting organised by supporters of Jacques Chirac," said Mr Jean-Claude Martinez, spokesman for Mr Le Pen's National Front party at the European Parliament, explaining his leader's no-show.
President Chirac, France's conservative incumbent, faces Mr Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election on May 5th and is widely predicted to win a landslide victory against a man he has branded a racist and a xenophobe.
The cancellation of the news conference triggered angry exchanges between the mostly leftwing MEPs and the journalists in an emotive atmosphere rarely seen in the Parliament, best known for its interminable, worthy but bland debates.
Mr Martinez and a security guard were splattered with cream pie thrown by a protester. A Belgian far-right MEP, Mr Karel Dillen, was also hit by a pie and his son Koen responded by punching the young assailant, of Arab origin, in the face.
Earlier, dozens of MEPs had stood up in the chamber with placards that read "Non" (No) before Mr Le Pen made a brief intervention in a debate on the Middle East.
The European Commissioner for External Affairs Mr Chris Patten, a British Conservative, referred indirectly to Mr Le Pen as one of the less agreeable aspects of European civilisation and described his electoral success as grubby and shameful.
In his comments on the Middle East, Mr Le Pen denounced the EU's willingness to take orders from the United States in a region where European powers including France had once governed.
Some MEPs distanced themselves from the protests in the press room which led to the cancellation of the news conference.
"It is easy for Le Pen to play the victim... If we want to defeat him, we should let him speak because he does not make any sense anyway," said Dutch Green MEP Ms Kathlijne Buitenweg.
"Now we have given him the chance to say the European Parliament is not democratic because it denied him the right to speak," she said.
The spokesman for European Parliament President Pat Cox apologised for the cancellation and promised a review of rules which allow MEPs to attend news conferences in the building.