GERMANY: A LATENT SENSE OF INSECURITY

   "At least since the events at the Cologne cathedral square on New Year's Eve in 2015 people apparently feel more and more unsafe," said Oliver Malchow, the chairman of one of Germany's two largest police unions. He was referring to the mass sexual assaults committed mainly by Arab and North African men at the Cologne cathedral square on New Year's Eve more than four years ago. Malchow was also referring to new statistics, which show that approximately 640,000 Germans now have licenses for gas pistols -- a large increase since 2014, when around 260,000 people had such a license. A gas pistol fires loud blanks or tear gas cartridges and is only potentially lethal at extremely close range.

    A recent annual poll, conducted in September, confirms Malchow's estimate: Every year since 1992, R+V, Germany's largest insurance firm, has been asking Germans what they fear most. "This year, for the first time," according to a report in Deutsche Welle, "a majority said they were most afraid that the country would be unable to deal with the aftermath of the migrant influx of 2015". Fifty-six percent of those polled said they were scared that the country would not be able to deal with the number of migrants. This September marked exactly four years since Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders and allowed in almost a million migrants.