Denmark’s left-wing prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has sent shockwaves through the European left with blunt remarks about the continent’s failure to address radical Islam within migrant communities.
The comments follow the migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, where Frederiksen criticized Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during a special parliamentary session.
Responding to a far-left legislator questioning Denmark’s lack of “solidarity” with Spain against “anti-democratic forces,” Frederiksen stated: “If we talk about undemocratic forces, then Russia is our biggest enemy. The problem is that a big enemy has started to grow from within, and it is foreigners who have come to Europe,” according to an English translation.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen addressing the Danish parliament. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
While stressing she was not targeting Denmark’s integrated immigrant population, she continued: “It is Hamas supporters. It is people who commit terror against European societies. It is people who do not recognize our fundamental European values. It is people who sympathize with some of the darkest forces in this world. So, Europe is threatened. The problem is that we are threatened both from outside and now from within, but it is not because of a disagreement between the Danish and Spanish governments, but because of people with an Islamic background who do not want the open, free European society, unfortunately.”
Sweden-based foreign policy expert and author Daniel Schatz told Fox News Digital: “What is striking is not that a conservative politician is talking about illegal immigration, failed integration and Islamist extremism, it is that one of Europe’s leading center-left prime ministers is saying it in such blunt terms. That tells you how far the European immigration debate has shifted.”
Escorted by the Spanish army, migrants who crossed into Spain return to Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Sempere)
Frederiksen rose to power in the 2019 elections on a platform that Reuters described as combining radical climate reforms, a lower pension age for manual workers, and stricter migration policies. Denmark already had some of Europe’s toughest asylum laws prior to 2019, including a 2018 law targeting “parallel societies.” That legislation allows the government to demolish or sell social housing in areas where more than half of residents are from a “non-Western” background, provided certain criteria are met, and bars refugees in those areas from family reunification.
In 2021, Frederiksen introduced a deportation law permitting the return of refugees to their countries of origin if Denmark deems them safe, even in the absence of diplomatic relations, despite the European Commission ruling that Danish legislation on transferring asylum seekers to third countries during processing was “incompatible with EU law.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, addressed the media during a joint press conference after a meeting at Palazzo Chigi. (Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Since June, Frederiksen has led opposition to Sánchez’s immigration policies, telling parliament: “It is no secret that I and the Spanish Prime Minister deeply disagree on immigration policy… I and we will not accept that Danish society has to pay the price for decisions in Spain that we fundamentally disagree with.”
On August 1, Frederiksen joined Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and 20 other EU leaders in a letter warning that the EU “cannot allow mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible.”
File photo showing men praying at a Mosque in Denmark. (Davut Colak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The two leaders, currently the only female heads of government in the EU, followed with a joint statement on August 10 affirming they “are both proud of Europe’s Christian cultural heritage and we want to protect it. We expect that those who arrive in our countries and choose to make Europe their home respect our values and do not try to impose ways of life that we do not share. We believe that this is the right path to protect Europe and our common values. And we believe that millions of Europeans share this conviction.”
Emma Schubart of the Henry Jackson Society told Fox News Digital: “Frederiksen is right to name the ‘enemy within’. Europe has spent years pretending that uncontrolled migration and failed integration come without consequences. They do not… Parallel societies have taken root, Islamist extremism has been allowed to fester and support for groups such as Hamas is no longer confined to the margins. Denmark understands the cost.”
Schatz added that Frederiksen “is essentially arguing that Europe faces threats from two directions: Russia from outside and anti-democratic extremism from within. For a center-left European leader, that is remarkably strong language.” He noted that her “political formula has been straightforward: protect Denmark’s generous system of public benefits and social services, control the border and deny the populist right a monopoly on immigration. For an American audience, that is probably the most important thing to understand about the Danish model.”
A police vehicle is seen near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen, as police investigate two explosions near the site, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)
Frederiksen’s shift, Schatz said, came not because Danish voters suddenly grew concerned about immigration, but because “she realized years ago that many of them already were.” He emphasized: “The important distinction is that this is not an argument that immigrants are inherently criminal. It is an argument that a democratic society must be willing to confront failed integration when it occurs.”
Schubart concluded: “Other leaders now need to show the same courage, secure their borders, deport those with no right to remain and make clear that integration into our laws and values is not optional.”
