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The leader of a far-right party in the Netherlands has been assaulted on the campaign trail for the second time, ahead of Wednesday’s parliamentary election.
Thierry Baudet, the 40-year-old leader of the populist Forum for Democracy party (FVD), was struck on the head several times by an assailant wielding a beer bottle at a bar in the northern city of Groningen in the Netherlands, according to his party.
Baudet suffered head injuries and was taken to University Medical Center Groningen for treatment, FVD said in a statement on X, with a security guard also hurt in the incident. Footage of the attack has circulated on social media. A police spokesperson said one person had been arrested.
Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the attack “totally unacceptable.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it now firmly: Stay away from politicians. Always,” Rutte wrote on X.
Freek Jansen, an FVD lawmaker who said he was with Baudet and witnessed the attack, reported the assailant shouted that he was “done with fascism,” and that Baudet was bleeding from the head afterward.
In October, Baudet was hit on the head with an umbrella before a university event in the Belgian city of Ghent, with the assailant allegedly shouting “no to fascism, no to Putinism.”
Baudet is a polarizing figure in the Netherlands due to his anti-immigration and pro-Moscow views. He has also spouted various conspiracy theories, including that Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist George Soros manufactured COVID-19 and that the world is controlled by “evil reptilians.”
His party is polling at 3 percent ahead of the knife-edge election, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.
