The unifying and popular Danish Queen Margrethe II, who announced Sunday she would abdicate on Jan. 14, was the only queen and longest-reigning monarch in Europe at 83.
Always elegantly dressed, she subtly modernized the image of the Danish monarchy by remaining at the helm of the small Nordic country for more than half a century.
On January 14, 1972, with the death of her father Frederick IX, she became the first woman to ascend this throne – Margrethe I was not officially regent until the Middle Ages (1375–1412).
Exactly 52 years later, she handed the scepter over to her eldest son, the 55-year-old Crown Prince Frederik.
In Denmark, the proportion of monarchists reaches its peak at over 80% and the Danish royal family is one of the most popular in the world.
Margrethe, whose reign is the second longest in the kingdom's history, is an institution that has long seemed indestructible.
Since the death of her distant cousin Elizabeth II, she is currently the longest-reigning monarch in Europe. In front of his Swedish neighbor and also cousin Carl XVI. Gustaf, who has just celebrated his 50th anniversary on the throne. Worldwide, only the Sultan of Brunei beats it by four years.
Immobile
When crown princesses are appointed to government in several European countries, Margrethe is the only woman from the Old Continent to rule.
The Dane could never have become queen, as the constitution forbade the crown to be placed on a woman's head until 1953.
To the detriment of his uncle Knud and his son, the law was then changed by referendum under pressure from the modernist Danish governments.
The reason for 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 the celebrations of her 50th year of reign in 2022.
“She managed to be a queen who united the Danish nation through many changes: globalization, the emergence of a multicultural state, economic crises (…) and the Covid-19 pandemic,” she had developed.
The queen, affectionately known as “Daisy,” who has been widowed since 2018, helped to gradually modernize the monarchy without trivializing it.
“I will stay on the throne until I fall,” the inveterate smoker and mother of two sons had previously warned.
However, back surgery last February gave him pause.
“The operation (…) gave rise to reflections about the future, about the question of whether it is time to transfer responsibility to the next generation,” confided the Queen on Sunday during her traditional New Year's address.
Artist
The costume designer and set designer, born on April 16, 1940 in Copenhagen, likes to carry her open smile around the country.
Every summer she goes on a cruise on her yacht Dannebrog before moving into her summer quarters in the Château de Cayx in southwest France.
The ruler bought it in 1975 with her late husband Prince Henrik, Henri de Monpezat, a noble diplomat who was born in France and originally from the region.
Her erudition – she studied at Cambridge and the Sorbonne – and her diverse talents make her a role model for Danes, who religiously follow her television appearances, especially her end-of-year greetings.
A polyglot intellectual, she tried her hand as a translator by developing a Danish version of Simone de Beauvoir's work All Men Are Mortal in 1981 under a pseudonym and in collaboration with her husband.
But she particularly excels in drawing and painting. Margrethe has illustrated numerous literary works, including the 2002 reprint of The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.
His paintings have been exhibited in renowned museums and galleries – in Denmark and abroad.