It has contrasted a conservative, Catholic Poland and its family values with a godless, freethinking, gender-bending Western Europe. It accuses past governments, the opposition and the urban elites, of hankering after European approval and acceptance to the detriment of Polish interests. As for the fight with the European Union over the government’s control of the judiciary, that “seems abstract,” said Agnieszka Walczuk, 45, the director of the town’s elementary school. PhotoThe recent squabble over Poland’s new law about history and the Holocaust is another example of the government offending Western European sensibilities about free speech for domestic gain. Poland rejects a “multilevel” or “two-speed” Europe, with an inner core of eurozone states and an outer ring of lesser members.

Source: New York Times February 21, 2018 04:41 UTC