By Andrew Stuttaford
Saturday, August 15, 2026
I wrote last year about the way in which Denmark’s Prime Minister
Mette Frederiksen, a Social Democrat, led her center-left party to take a
tougher stance on immigration after she became its leader in 2015. Not unconnectedly,
she became Denmark’s prime minister in 2019. Unsurprisingly, Frederiksen has
reiterated her position on immigration in the wake of the events in Ceuta, and
in language unimaginable from almost anywhere else on the left.
On August 12, the Danish parliament debated Ceuta and its aftermath. Among Frederiksen’s
remarks were these (translation by Google Translate, but from my very, very
limited knowledge of Danish it looks to be accurate):
A few years ago,
Denmark stood very much alone in Europe. Now a majority of EU countries support
it, and this has made it possible to create concrete political results. We have
succeeded in changing EU legislation so that it is now possible to establish reception
and departure canters [for illegal migrants] in countries outside the EU, and .
. . Danish authorities are working concretely to make it a reality. In other
words: Denmark is now pushing Europe forward, and we intend to continue to do
so — also when it comes to the issue of legalizing illegal migrants who are
already in Europe, because we are against that. We are against that. It is
no secret that I and the Spanish prime minister deeply disagree on immigration
policy. We do so at a national level, and we do so at a European level. The
Spanish government can make its own national decisions, just as Denmark can. But
I and we will not accept that Danish society has to pay the price for decisions
in Spain that we fundamentally disagree with. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, given the rules governing internal
movement within the EU, the
amnesty for illegal migrants forced through by Spain’s far-left prime
minister, Pedro Sánchez, had implications elsewhere in the bloc. That’s
something that Sánchez, who has complained loudly about a lack of “solidarity”
within the EU after the Ceuta crisis would do well to remember, a point that
Frederiksen addressed later in the debate.
Frederiksen also turned her attention to the danger posed
to Europe by “undemocratic forces.” After identifying Russia as the principal
threat, she then turned her attention to what she referred to a “big enemy that
has started to grow from within (en stor fjende er begyndter begyndt at
vokse op indefra).”
Who might this be?
It is foreigners
who have come to Europe [“udlændinge, der er kommet til Europe”], 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 [“folk
med islamisk baggrund”] who do not want the open, free European society,
unfortunately.
As a reminder, Frederiksen was on the left and is on the
left. To Bernie Sanders, she must be the Dane from hell.
Moreover, she has just co-signed a letter with Italy’s redoubtable (oh, sorry,
“far right”) Giorgia Meloni, who is, in many respects, Frederiksen’s polar
opposite, as the duo acknowledge in the letter:
We are aware that
many might be wondering about our cooperation. We come from very different
political backgrounds, and we certainly do not agree on everything.
But:
We do not accept
uncontrolled immigration to Europe, and we have promoted a strict immigration
policy, both in our Nations and in Europe.
And they defend their stance not only on conventional
grounds (problems with crime and so on), but something deeper:
We are both proud
of Europe’s Christian cultural heritage and we want to protect it. We expect
those who come to our countries and choose to make Europe their home to respect
our values and not seek to impose ways of life on us that we do not share.
The reference to “cultural heritage” is carefully chosen.
This is not, it should be stressed, some sort of theological declaration. Meloni is a Catholic, if somewhat idiosyncratically so, and
a churchgoer. Frederiksen is a member of the Church of Denmark but is not a believer. However, for reasons tied to culture
and social cohesion, she is a “virkelig hardcore tilhænger” (a really
hardcore supporter) of the Danish church, a stance, incidentally, that has its
equivalents in the home of the Church of England.
Contrast the attitude of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader
of France’s hard left LFI. He will be running (again) for the French presidency
next year and, based on current polling, he may emerge as the leading
candidate of the left.
Mélenchon talks of a “New France” formed and defined by a
process he refers to as “créolisation” (a concept borrowed from Édouard
Glissant, a poet born in the French Caribbean), something new formed by the
mix of traditional French and immigrant culture, rather than the traditional
French model which is, at least in theory, assimilationist.
Mélenchon’s approach is, above all, a matter of political
calculation. He has realized that the white Catholic working class (“les ouvriers blancs
catholiques”) are not going to help build the path to socialism he is
looking for. He seems to have concluded that citizens of the nascent New France
just might. Given France’s demographics, that has meant a sharp turn toward
Muslim voters, which seems to be working. In the 2024 European elections, an
estimated 62 percent of those French Muslims who voted (there was a high
abstention rate) opted for the LFI and an estimated 69 percent chose Mélenchon
in the first round of the 2022 presidential elections.
Mélenchon dismisses talk of an informal Islamo-leftist
“partnership.” He also denies allegations of antisemitism.
Of course he does.
Fortunately, his sort of politics would be impossible in
New York City, say, or Michigan.
Oh.
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