Merkel under pressure

Angela Merkel's challenge is to reassure an increasingly pessimistic public that she has a long-term plan. The chancellor showed compassion when she welcomed more than a million refugees and migrants into Germany in 2015. Now she is under pressure to make clear there are limits to German tolerance.

Anti-immigration campaigners have seized on the Cologne incident as an example of what they see as the failure of the country's asylum policy. The prominence of the far-right Pegida movement was fading. It is now using the attacks as a propaganda tool.
On the other side of what is a widening chasm, established Islamic groups here have expressed fears that the actions of a few may jeopardise the future of many.
With tension rising and tolerance waning, Germany's doors remain open, but many here are increasingly asking: For how long and at what cost?

Germany has accepted more than a million migrants and refugees in the past year.
Officials have warned that anti-immigrant groups have been trying to use the attacks to stir up hatred.

Similar attacks to those seen in Cologne were also reported in Hamburg and in Stuttgart on New Year's Eve. In Bielefeld, hundreds of men tried to force their way into nightclubs, Die Welt reports (in German).
Police said several women had alleged sexual assault.
On Friday, the chief of police for North Rhine-Westphalia was suspended. Wolfgang Albers had been accused of holding back information about the attacks, in particular about the origin of the suspects.