Listening to the anti-immigration rhetoric of Petteri Orpo’s government and especially of its Perussuomalaiset (PS)* interior minister, Mari Rantanen, on tightening citizenship requirements, two matters come to light: racism and hypocrisy.
The planned changes in the citizenship law include:
- Raising residence requirements from five to eight years.
- A person must make a certain amount (sill unspecified) of money and without Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland) funds to be eligible for citizenship.
- A new citizenship test and more rigorous language exams will be introduced.
- Certain (still unspecified) crimes may make you lose your citizenship.
Rantanen is not only a multiculturally challenged politician but does not practice what she hatefully preaches.
“Finnish citizenship will be a reward for successful integration,” she claimed at a press conference, adding that the changes in the law will “not be unreasonable, though”.
Rantanen’s views and actions against migrants reveal how far out of touch she is with our values.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.
With politicians like Rantanen and the hard-right shift in immigration policy in Finland, it shows the real rot that our Nordic values have hidden and protected. Thus with racist rhetoric we can win elections, get a ministerial seat, and claim with a poker face that we are not racists.
If you believe what Rantanen is telling you about why citizenship laws ust be tightened, then, I suspect, you will fall for anything.
Some of Rantanen’s most infamous quotes include her statement about blue eyes and a clear alusion to the great replacement conspiracy theory. “We mustn’t be so naive [naive in Finnish means being ‘blue-eyed’] that soon we won’t be blue-eyed.”
The minister has even wished that asylum seekers drown off the coast of Greece.
Below are a few of her hostile statements before they were white-clearned from her social media sites after she became interior minister.


Read some more tweets (in Finnish) about Rantanen’s racist posts by @PistolSolja here.
Looking at Rantanen’s track record, It is preposterous that she wants to tighten citizenship laws so that only “well-integrated” migrants can become naturalized Finns.
In my opinion, plans to tighten the citizenship law is not only based on prejudice, but mainly to give such people the following message: You are not welcome here, and we don’t want you to vote and undermine our political power.