Thierry Baudet was repeatedly stricken by a bottle-wielding attacker two days before a general election in the Netherlands
Thierry Baudet addresses students in Ghent, Belgium, October 26, 2023 © AFP / James Arthur Gekiere
Dutch politician Thierry Baudet has been hospitalized after he was attacked at a campaign event by a man wielding a beer bottle. The incident was the second attack on Baudet in recent weeks, and took place two days before a general election.
Baudet was greeting supporters at a bar in the northern city of Groningen on Monday when the assailant struck him repeatedly on the head and neck with the bottle. Video footage showed Baudet’s security team rushing the injured political leader away as bystanders wrestled the attacker to the ground.
The attacker was arrested shortly afterwards, while Baudet was taken to a nearby hospital. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), his Forum for Democracy (FvD) party said that Baudet was treated by a trauma surgeon and that the bottle narrowly missed his eye.
Filmpje van de aanslag op Thierry pic.twitter.com/lwXYvt8W76
— Visionair des Vaderlands (@KWinkelaar) November 20, 2023
The party then announced that an event scheduled for later in the evening in the city of Zwolle had been canceled “for the health and safety” of Baudet.
Monday’s attack came less than a month after Baudet was struck with an umbrella by a masked assailant at Ghent University in Belgium. Baudet suffered a minor concussion as a result of the strike, and the perpetrator – who shouted anti-Russian slogans during the incident – was arrested on the spot.
Baudet describes his party as “the most energetic anti-globalist movement of our time,” and is a vocal critic of immigration, “woke and LGBT propaganda,” and Dutch membership of the EU and NATO. He has described the conflict in Ukraine as “a stupid NATO war against Russia,” and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a huge hero” in the fight against American-led “globalism.”
Formed in 2016, his party won 1.8% of the vote in the following year’s general election, which rose to 5% in 2021. Ahead of another general election this Wednesday, the FvD is currently polling at 3%, according to an aggregate of multiple opinion polls compiled by Politico.
Several right-wing populist politicians have been attacked across Europe in the last six weeks. Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Tino Chrupalla was hospitalized after he was stabbed with a syringe at a rally in early October, while Alejo Vidal-Quadras, the founder of Spain’s Vox party, was left seriously injured after he was shot in the face in Madrid earlier this month.
