Denmark PM Mette Frederiksen has been left “shocked” after being attacked on the street in Copenhagen, her workplace says.
The assault came about on a sq. within the centre of town the place a person walked as much as her and hit her.
The attacker has been arrested.
European Fee chief Ursula von der Leyen referred to as it a “despicable act, which matches towards all the pieces we consider in and combat for in Europe”.
“Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was overwhelmed on Friday night at Kultorvet in Copenhagen by a person who was subsequently arrested. The prime minister is shocked by the incident,” the prime minister’s workplace mentioned in a press release with out giving additional element.
Police mentioned they’d arrested a person and have been investigating the incident, however declined to say extra.
There isn’t a phrase on a motive but.
Two witnesses, Marie Adrian and Anna Ravn, informed native newspaper BT that they’d seen the assault.
“A person got here by in the wrong way and gave her a tough shove on the shoulder, inflicting her to fall to the facet,” the 2 ladies informed the newspaper.
They mentioned that whereas it was a “sturdy push” the prime minister didn’t hit the bottom.
She then sat down at a café, they added.
The assault comes two days earlier than Denmark votes within the EU election.
Ms Frederiksen, chief of Denmark’s Social Democrats, had earlier taken half in a European election occasion together with her get together’s lead candidate Christel Schaldemose, Denmark’s TV2 experiences.
The Social Democrats are the most important get together in Denmark’s coalition authorities. They nonetheless lead the polls, however their assist has fallen again significantly in current months.
Danish Atmosphere Minister Magnus Heunicke mentioned on X: “Mette is of course shocked by the assault. I have to say that it shakes all of us who’re near her.”
EU chief Charles Michel mentioned on X that he was “outraged”.
“I strongly condemn this cowardly act of aggression,” he mentioned.
The assault comes lower than a month after Slovak PM Robert Fico was shot a number of occasions as he greeted supporters. He survived and has since undergone surgical procedure.
Ms Frederiksen, 46, turned prime minister in 2019 after taking on as chief of the centre-left Social Democrats 4 years earlier. This made her the youngest prime minister in Danish historical past.
Quickly after, she turned embroiled in a spat with then-President Donald Trump after she rebuffed his thought of the US shopping for Greenland.
Mr Trump referred to as her “nasty” after she dismissed the suggestion of such a land deal as “absurd”.
In 2022, Ms Frederiksen was closely criticised by a fee investigating her authorities’s choice to cull hundreds of thousands of mink through the Covid pandemic.