(AFP) Keen to protect its prosperity and social cohesion, Denmark has spent two decades cracking down on immigration under pressure from the far-right. But now that tough rhetoric is widely adopted by the mainstream to the dismay of immigrants who say they feel stigmatised.
Ahead of Wednesday’s general election, the woman who will likely become the next prime minister, Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats, has vowed to carry on the immigration policies pursued by outgoing Liberal Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, whose minority government has been informally backed by the populist Danish People’s Party.
“The Social Democrats realised that if they don’t want to lose yet another election on the immigration question, they needed to emulate the policies of the Liberals and the Danish People’s Party,” University of Roskilde political scientist Flemming Juul Christiansen told AFP.
