Danish Queen Margrethe II announced on Sunday, during her traditional New Year’s speech, that she will abdicate on January 14, after 52 years of reign.
On January 14, 2024, 52 years after succeeding my beloved father, I will step down as Queen of Denmark. “I will leave the throne to my son, Crown Prince Frederik,” she said during her televised greeting.
Unifying and popular, the sovereign, widowed since 2018, underwent major back surgery in February which prevented her from appearing in public until April.
The operation has […] has given rise to reflections on the future, on the question of whether the time has come to pass on responsibilities to the next generation, confided the Queen, 83 years old.
On the throne since her father’s death in 1972, this polyglot intellectual has helped gradually modernize the monarchy.
Since the death of her distant cousin Elizabeth II, Margrethe is the last queen to reign in Europe. More than 80% of Danes identify as monarchists and thousands turned out last year to celebrate her jubilee of 50 years of her rule.
Many of us have never known another monarch. Queen Margrethe is the very embodiment of Denmark and, over the years, she has expressed in words and feelings what we are as a people and as a nation, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded in a statement.
If crown princesses are called to reign in several European countries, Margrethe is the only woman from the Old Continent to reign.
Queen, the Dane could never have been also because the Constitution prohibited the crown from coming to the head of a woman until 1953. To the detriment of her uncle Knud and her son, the law was later changed by referendum, under pressure from modern-minded Danish governments.
The basis of her popularity is that the queen is not political at all, she unites the nation instead of dividing it, historian Lars Hovebakke Sørensen told AFP during her 50th anniversary celebrations.
She managed to be a queen who unified the Danish nation through many changes: globalization, the advent of a multicultural state, economic crises […] and the pandemic, he explained.
Costume designer and set designer, the queen distinguished herself above all in drawing and painting. Margrethe has illustrated numerous literary works, such as the 2002 reprint of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Her paintings have been exhibited in prestigious museums and galleries, in Denmark and abroad.
2023-12-31 17:56:00
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