Mette Frederiksen, who has led the country since 2019, was “beaten,” her office said. The police said an arrest had been made, but a motive is unclear.
Edit: it seems like the NYT missed the mark on this one.
AP reports:
Two eyewitnesses, Anna Ravn and Marie Adrian, told the daily BT that they saw a man walking toward the prime minister and then “pushing her hard on the shoulder so she was shoved aside.” They stressed that she did not fall down.
This is blown way out of proportion or a bad translation
This article with eyewitness reports tells that a man going the opposite way, across a city square, gives the prime minister a hard shove on the shoulder, and she almost falls over, but avoids to fall. Attacked? Yes. Beaten: No
Der kom en mand forbi i den modsatte retning, og han gav hende et hårdt skub på skulderen, så hun væltede til siden, fortæller henholdsvis 18- og 17-årige Marie Adrian og Anna Ravn til mediet.
Thanks for the danish link. Definitely not "beaten". I haven't lived in Scandinavia in nearly 20 years and am way out of touch with politics there. What's the reasoning behind this?
I don't think it was something planned. My guess is some idiot randomly sees the prime minister, and decides to give her a shove. She's made some unpopular decisions. Last year she abolished a national holiday, on some questionable grounds, that it would increase employment and earlier this year, she strongly implied that the Danish working morale was low, and that we should put in more hours. She recently said it was a mistake to remove the holiday, and that her statement about work morale was taken out of context. Not that she's going to bring back the holiday. The statement about work morale could only be interpreted one way, even in the full context of the speech she gave
I met the prime minister of Denmark back in 2005. He had two guards with him. But that was also around the Muhammad cartoons
In recent years I've had some interactions with the crown princess of Denmark. The first time she had two guards. The next few times, she came by herself, car keys in hand
Our former King Frederick the 9th (1947 to1972) was known for heading to bars in Nyhavn, and drinking with the sailors.
She definitely has a few agents from the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) around her at all times. They are most often dressed in civilian clothing, but you can see the earpiece, they use to communicate.