Danish PM Frederiksen attacked in Copenhagen
The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, was been in total surprise after she was attacked by a man in Copenhagen street.
Ms Frederiksen, according to her office, couldn’t imagine herself being assaulted in the street of Copenhagen.
The assault took place on a square in the centre of the city where a man walked up to her and hit her, said the BBC.
This is a “despicable act, which goes against everything we believe in and fight for in Europe,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission chief told the BBC.
In a press statement, office of the prime minister said the attacker was “subsequently arrested”.
“Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was beaten on Friday evening at Kultorvet in Copenhagen by a man who was subsequently arrested,” the statement read.
“The prime minister is shocked by the incident.”
Two eye witnesses, Marie Adrian and Anna Ravn, informed a local newspaper ,BT, that the attacker had given ms Frederiksen “a hard shove on the shoulder”.
“A man came by in the opposite direction and gave her a hard shove on the shoulder, causing her to fall to the side,” the two women said.
However, law enforcement agents said the man in custody would be questioned more thoroughly to know what led to ms Frederiksen’s attack.
“She seemed a little stressed,” Soren Kjergaard, who works as a barista on the square, told Reuters after seeing the prime minister being escorted away.
The attack comes two days before Denmark votes in the EU election.
According to Denmark’s TV2, Frederiksen had earlier taken part in a European election event with Social Democrat lead candidate Christel Schaldemose.
A recent report revealed that her Social Democrats lead the polls, and are the biggest party in the coalition government. Nevertheless their support has fallen back considerably in recent months.
Denmark’s Minister of Environment Magnus Heunicke said she condemned such the incident was “horribly shocking” to hear
“Mette is naturally shocked by the attack. I must say that it shakes all of us who are close to he.
On X, EU chief Charles Michel said on the X that described the action of the attacker as “cowardly aggression”
“I strongly condemn this cowardly act of aggression,” he said.
