The Mayor of Cologne has suggested that young women should adopt a “code of conduct”, after women in the city centre were subjected to sexual assaults by hundreds of men on New Year's Eve.

Henriette Reker attended an emergency meeting with police on Tuesday to discuss how best to deal with the incidents that occurred when 1,000 men, “of Arab or North African appearance”, took over the area around the main station.

Dozens of women reported being touched and groped. There was also one case of alleged rape.  

In an interview with RP Online, Ms Reker said: “It is important to prevent such incidents from ever happening again.”

The proposed code of conduct includes staying within your own group, remaining at arm's length away from strangers, and asking bystanders to intervene or to help as a witness.

The mayor of Cologne says the code will be made available online and has been created "so that such things do not happen to them [women]."

Ms Reker’s suggestion immediately received backlash, with many accusing her of victim-blaming the women assaulted.

However, Ms Reker also warned people not to make assumptions about the status of the men involved: "It's completely improper ... to link a group that appeared to come from North Africa with the refugees," said Ms Reker.

Wolfgang Albers, Cologne's police chief, said no arrests had been made yet.

"We don't currently have any suspects, so we don't know who the perpetrators were. All we know is that the police at the scene perceived that it was mostly young men aged 18 to 35 from the Arab or North African region,” he added.