A man has assaulted Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen in central Copenhagen, local media reported.
Police confirmed “there has been an incident with the Prime Minister” and that a 39-year-old man was arrested on Friday.
Authorities later said the man will appear at a pre-trial custody hearing at Copenhagen District Court at 12pm GMT.
It was not clear if Ms Frederiksen was hurt during the incident.
Two eyewitnesses, Anna Ravn and Marie Adrian, told the daily BT that they saw a man walking toward Ms Frederiksen and then “pushing her hard on the shoulder so she was shoved aside”. They stressed that the premier did not fall down.
Another witness, Kasper Jorgensen, told the Ekstra Bladet tabloid that a well-dressed man, who seemed part of Ms Frederiksen’s protection unit, and a police officer took down the alleged assailant.
Outraged by the assault on the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen @statsmin in Copenhagen tonight.
I strongly condemn this cowardly act of aggression.
All my thoughts are with you and your family, dear Mette and hope you overcome this horrendous attack soon.— Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) June 7, 2024
Soren Kjaergaard, who was working at a local bar on Kultorvet Square where the incident happened, told the BT that he saw Ms Frederiksen after the incident and she had no visible injuries to her face but walked away quickly.
The prime minister’s office told the Danish state broadcaster DR on Friday that Ms Frederiksen was “shocked” by what happened.
Politicians in the Scandinavian country and abroad condemned the reported assault.
Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson said that “an attack on a democratically elected leader is also an attack on our democracy”, while Charles Michel, president of the European Council, condemned on X what he called a “cowardly act of aggression”.
European Union parliamentary elections are currently under way in Denmark and the rest of the 27-nation bloc and will conclude on Sunday.
Ms Frederiksen has been campaigning with the Social Democrats’ EU lead candidate, Christel Schaldemose.
Media reports said the attack was not linked to a campaign event.
Violence against politicians has become a theme in the run-up to the EU elections. In May, a candidate from Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats was beaten and seriously injured while campaigning for a seat in the European Parliament.
In Slovakia, the election campaign was overshadowed by an attempt to assassinate populist prime minister Robert Fico on May 15th, sending shockwaves through the nation of 5.4 million and reverberating throughout Europe.
Assaults on politicians in Denmark are rare.
On March 23rd, 2003, two activists threw red paint on then-prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen inside the parliament and were immediately arrested. Then-foreign minister Per Stig Moller also suffered some splashes that day.
