Prime Minister Sanna Marin fired back at a session of parliament Thursday at the far-right Perussuomaliset (PS)* party. Making Finland an open and safe country is crucial if it wants to attract newcomers to the country.
“Madam Speaker. Violence on streets, violence at homes, violence at schools are all severe matters, severe matters of which all of us are concerned.
I will now address the Perussuomalaiset point because it also gives a distorted picture of the type of people that live in Finland. It’s not so that every person who has come from elsewhere [to Finland] is a violent criminal, a person who does wrong. In this country, we have numerous groups of people who come from elsewhere and who work tirelessly, raise families, and are concerned about Finland’s future in the same way as people born here.
The phenomenon, violence on streets, violence at homes, violence at schools is a serious matter that we must address. Still, it is also wrong that we give here [in parliament], the very picture that the Perussuomalaiset spread, that every migrant is a person who does not fit in this society. It isn’t like that at all.”