Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was left “shocked” after being struck by a man while walking in Copenhagen’s old town. The incident occurred in a city square when a man approached the prime minister and hit her.
The attacker was quickly apprehended, though his motive remains unclear. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen condemned the attack as a “despicable act, which goes against everything we believe in and fight for in Europe.”
This assault follows an attack on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot multiple times last month but survived and underwent surgery.
Witnesses Marie Adrian and Anna Ravn described the incident to local newspaper BT, saying, “A man came by in the opposite direction and gave her a hard shove on the shoulder, causing her to fall to the side.” While the shove was strong, Frederiksen did not fall to the ground and later sat at a nearby café to recover.
Frederiksen’s office confirmed that the prime minister was “shocked” by the incident. The attack occurred just two days before Denmark’s EU election. Frederiksen had earlier participated in a European election event with her party’s lead candidate, Christel Schaldemose.
The Social Democrats, Denmark’s largest party in the coalition government, lead the polls despite a recent decline in support. Danish Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke expressed his concern on social media platform X, saying, “Mette is naturally shocked by the attack. I must say that it shakes all of us who are close to her.”
EU chief Charles Michel also condemned the assault, calling it a “cowardly act of aggression.”
Frederiksen, 46, became Denmark’s youngest prime minister in 2019. She has been the leader of the centre-left Social Democrats since 2015. Frederiksen previously made headlines in 2019 when she dismissed then-President Donald Trump’s idea of the US buying Greenland as “absurd,” leading Trump to call her “nasty.” In 2022, she faced criticism for her government’s decision to cull millions of mink during the Covid pandemic.
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