German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned an attack on a European Parliament member from his party, calling it a “threat” to democracy.

Matthias Ecke, the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) top candidate in Saxony, was assaulted on Friday as he hung posters in Dresden.

Mr Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the incident, police said.

The current MEP was campaigning for June’s European Parliament election.

Four unknown attackers hit and kicked Mr Ecke in the Striesen district in Dresden, East Germany.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Mr Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Shortly before the incident, the same group appear to have attacked a 28-year-old Greens campaigner on the same street, police said.

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