A minor Dutch royal has caused a media storm in the Netherlands by trying to stop a loud racist conversation at a café in Amsterdam.

Eloïse van Oranje, the oldest daughter of the king’s brother Constantijn, was an apparently unwitting participant in a television show which aimed to test whether people are prepared to intervene when they witness racist or other discriminatory attacks.

The countess, who is 20, overheard a conversation in which a young man was telling his brother not to date a black woman. “Holy shit, I am going to say something,” Eloïse is heard to say to her companion.

She then got up and went to the table where the conversation was taking place, telling the man he was a “f*kking racist” and to “behave like a normal person”. 

When the ‘racist’ tells her to mind her own business, she goes on: “Are you in the right mind, man?…This is the 21st century man. Put your ego to one side.”

While many commentators have suggested Eloise was in on the act, the production team say it was a complete coincidence that she was sitting on the terrace just as they were ready to roll the cameras.  

“We were in make-up and busy with the script when the director came flying in and said ‘Eloise is on the terrace, we are going to go for it now,’” Benjamin Beernick, who played the racist brother, told NOS in a reaction. 

The countess’s intervention has been praised by some anti-racism campaigners. Calling each other out is the only way to set standards, Juliette Bonneur from anti-discrimination bureau Radar told Trouw. 

“It is important that someone dares to be first,” Bonneur said. “You can see this in the film. If one person stands up, then others dare to speak out too.”