Fortuyn often responded to criticism by stating that his views were misunderstood or distorted by the media, and in turn rejected comparisons and expressed his personal distaste for radical far-right politicians in other European countries. He explicitly distanced himself from Jean-Marie Le Pen and criticised some of his policies, including Le Pen's downplaying of the Holocaust. In domestic politics, Fortuyn also distanced his views from hard-right Dutch politicians such as Hans Janmaat and Joop Glimmerveen (who called for the mass expulsion of foreigners from the Netherlands) by maintaining that if he came to power, he would pardon existing illegal immigrants if they had in the Netherlands for over five years and offer them a path to citizenship if they could be assimilated into society.