This Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron received the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, at the Élysée. There was another guest, recently put in the international spotlight: Jens-Frederik Nielsen, 34, freshly Prime Minister of Greenland.
The objective was to reaffirm “European solidarity” and French support for the sovereignty of Denmark and its immense Arctic territory. A visit which comes after weeks of tensions caused by Donald Trump and his ambition to buy the island. Just a few months after the start of his mandate, the young leader had to assert himself in the face of pressure from the White House. Greenland is “not for sale, it will never be American,” he repeated. But who are you really, Jens-Frederik Nielsen?
Bullied at school because “different”
Jens-Frederik Nielsen is at the head of this island which has 57,000 inhabitants. Born in Nuuk, the capital, he is the child of a Greenlandic Inuit mother and a Danish father, notes France Info. He therefore embodies a Greenland torn between the desire for independence and the desire to maintain good relations with Denmark. But long before all that, he was a bullied young boy.
His childhood was indeed not easy. According to the The weekend newspaperrelayed by Le Figaroit all begins in the schoolyard in Nuuk, where his light skin and hair mark him as “different”. “I was harassed because I looked Danish. It’s a form of racism,” he told the newspaper. Recess turns into a nightmare; he is beaten up by comrades who shout at him to “go back to Denmark”. And the adults turn a blind eye.
Badminton champion and hunting fan
So Jens-Frederik Nielsen took refuge in sport. According to The weekend newspaperhe rubbed shoulders with three national youth teams in football, handball and badminton, before devoting himself to the last one. To the point of winning 15 national championships and winning the gold medal at the Island Games, Greenland’s most important tournament. He is also a hunting enthusiast who does not hesitate to share his trophies on Instagram, a chess enthusiast, a guitar player…
Politically, this graduate in social sciences got involved from high school. He has been the president since 2020 of the center-right Demokraatit party, which saw its number of seats increase from 3 to 10 seats in the March 2025 elections, according to Le Figaro. Appointed head of a broad coalition, he placed emphasis on the economy. Before, therefore, having to face the American ogre.
