“I think she is right because the task had become too heavy,” says Stéphane Bern

“I think she is right because the task had become too heavy for her”estimated Monday January 1 on franceinfo the journalist Stéphane Bern, specialist in monarchies, while the Queen of Denmark Margrethe II announced during her New Year’s greetings that she would abdicate on January 14 for the benefit of her son Frédérik, after 52 years of reign.

Unifying and popular, the sovereign, widowed since 2018 and aged 83, had undergone major back surgery in February which prevented her from appearing in public until April. “She moved with difficulty with a cane”explained Stéphane Bern. “She therefore considered that the time had come to bow out.”

“Abdication is not natural”

“She is a very popular woman so I understand the astonishment of the Danes, who learned of this abdication directly”he continued. “She was an emblem, the last female queen in Europe and the oldest of European heads of state”.

“Abdication is always a kind of trauma”continued Stéphane Bern. “Abdication is not natural, in general we die on the throne”. On the throne since the death of her father in 1972, this polyglot intellectual contributed to gradually modernizing the monarchy. More than 80% of Danes identify as monarchists and they turned out in their thousands to celebrate his jubilee of 50 years of rule last year.