A LEADING candidate to become the mayor of Cologne was seriously injured yesterday in a knife attack motivated by apparent anger at the liberal refugee policy of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Henriette Reker, 58, an independent contender supported by Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), underwent emergency surgery after being stabbed in the neck and stomach.
The assailant, an unemployed 44-year-old, approached Reker as she was giving out roses while canvassing at a street market in the west German city.
The man, who has not been named, asked for a flower and then pulled out a 16in hunting knife and a switchblade, and repeatedly stabbed her.
Jürgen Strahl, a CDU councillor who witnessed the stabbing, said the attacker shouted “that he had to rescue society from such people”.
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The man was eventually overpowered by an off-duty policeman.
The assailant declared that his motive had been political.
Four other people were injured in the attack.
The German government is facing a backlash over its open-door policy towards migrants, about 1m of whom are expected to enter the country this year, as Europe faces its most serious migrant crisis since the Second World War.
A series of fires at refugee shelters are suspected of having been caused by arsonists.
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Protesters at an 8,000-strong anti-migration rally in Dresden last week set up makeshift gallows with the names of Merkel and her vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel of the junior coalition partner the Social Democrats (SPD).
Amid continuing problems elsewhere in Europe, Slovenia announced yesterday it was deploying the army to help the police as thousands of migrants arrived on its border after Hungary closed its border with Croatia.
A disused school in Sweden that was to house 80 refugees has been razed in what police called a case of “aggravated arson”.