Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen attacked in Copenhagen; man arrested – Firstpost

A man is said to have hit Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Copenhagen Square. The Prime Minister was “shocked by the incident,” her office said in a statement on Friday.

“Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was hit by a man on Copenhagen’s Kultorvet on Friday evening. The man was subsequently arrested,” the statement to AFP said.

The incident came at a time when memories of the assassination attempt on Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico are still fresh. Fico was shot four times at close range as he greeted supporters after a government meeting in the central town of Handlova. He later survived the attack.

Two witnesses who were present at Copenhagen Square told the local newspaper BT that they saw Frederiksen arrive at the square while they were sitting at a nearby fountain.

“A man came towards her and gave her a hard push on the shoulder, causing her to fall to the side,” the two women told the newspaper.

They added that although Frederiksen had received a “strong impact”, he did not hit the ground.

The witnesses added that the attacker was tall and slim and tried to flee the scene but was soon caught. The man has since been arrested.

Another witness, Kasper Jorgensen, told the newspaper Ekstra Bladet that he saw the man after he was thrown to the ground and said a man, presumably a member of the security service, pressed his knee on his back.

“They had calmed him down, and as he lay there he looked confused and a little dazed,” Jorgensen told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Frederiksen was taken to a nearby cafe after the attack.

EU Commissioner Charles Michel and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola strongly condemned the attack on Frederiksen on Friday.

Metsola urged the Danish leader to “stay strong,” adding in a post on X that “violence has no place in politics.”

Michel, in turn, said he was “outraged by the attack.”

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms this cowardly act of aggression,” the President of the European Council said in a separate post to X.

With contributions from AFP

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