Staff Writer Katharina Kayser analyses how the AfD’s Alice Weidel’s candidacy for German Chancellor represents a recent wave of European far-right parties being led by female politicians.
While other countries were enjoying their holiday break from daily political drama, in Germany, the period was far from restful as the country prepared itseld for the upcoming February 2025 elections. Campaigning is now in full swing with all major parties nominating their candidate for chancellor.
Olaf Scholz, the current head of government, for the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD), Friedrich Merz for the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), Robert Habeck for the Greens and Alice Weidel for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). All candidates are popular figureheads in their parties and thus their candidacy is not surprising.
Yet, for the first time since its establishment in 2013, the AfD has their own candidate. Given their voter popularity this is not surprising. What is surprisisng is who the AFD chose: a female candidate.
The phenomenon of having young blonde females leading extreme right-wing parties can be observed across multiple European countries. But why is that? Why do right-wing parties choose to be represented by women, when their manifestos clearly state that they want to cut back on women’s rights? Is this just a natural process given that women in other sectors gain more access to top positions, or is there a greater strategy in place. Looking at the situation in three EU founding countries will help shed light on this issue.
Female leaders taking on far-right leadership across Europe
Italy
Giorgia Meloni, born in 1977 is Italy’s first female right-wing Prime Minister. She is the leader of the Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) the ‘Brothers of Italy’ Party, which she founded in 2011. Her party did not join Mario Draghi in his national unity government which made them a strong voice in the opposition. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, FdI won with 26% and is now leading a right-wing coalition. The Party has quite firm far-right stances on numerous issues, with Meloni voicing in a speech held in Barcelona, that her agenda is:
“Yes to natural family, no to the LGBT Lobby […], no to gender ideology, no to Islamist voices, yes to secure border, no to mass immigration […], no to big international finance […] no to bureaucrats of Brussels!”
Giorga Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy
Meloni emphasises that her party is not fascist. Yet, her stance on Mussolini that “everything he did, he did for Italy,” suggests that her own position is just as extremist.
France
Marine Le Pen, born in 1968, is the leading figure of the French Rassemblement National (RN), formerly known as Front Nationale (FN). In 2024, Le Pen’s RN won 31.3% of votes in the European Parliament elections as well as 32% in the Assemblée Nationale elections. Le Pen ran for the French Presidency in 2012, 2017 and 2022 and went into direct competition with Macron in the second round twice. The margins between her and the incumbent are becoming slimmer demonstrating the popularity of the right-wing party. RN opposes globalisation and multiculturalism and favours of economic nationalism and restricting immigration.
Germany
Alice Weidel, born in 1979, is the Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD), ‘Alternative for Germany’, first candidate for chancellor. Additionally, she is co-leader of the far-right party and has been its strong opposition voice in the Bundestag. Besides being known for various Tik Tok videos – “I am not going to let my Schnitzel be taken away” – and her recent interview with Elon Musk, people know Weidel because of her populist speeches in Parliament. She referred to refugees as “Kopftuch Mädchen und Messer Männer”, headscarf girls and knife men. Estimations for the upcoming elections place the AfD on the second place behind the CDU. A Forsa survey found that 79% of Germans think the AfD is an extremist right-wing party.
Even though equality is suggested, it is anti-feminism that is being propagated.
Lea Lochau, the anti-fascist Amadeu Antonion foundation
One can see many similarities in the parties. All are anti-immigration, all want back to a traditional image of family. All have long crossed the line from conservatism into right-wing populism and all apparently appeal to the electorate. Meloni is leader of Italy. Le Pen has already fought many elections and has steadily gained support in France. Weidel has won several state elections and is thus the first ever AfD chancellor candidate in Germany.
All these similarities, however, make the question of WHY even more pressing. Knowing that AfD seeks higher birthrates among biological Germans or that all three parties are anti-abortion and want to revert to a family image of the 30s, the choice of being represented by a woman is contradictory. Can it therefore be considered a natural process or is it a strategy? There are three main reasons for this phenomenon.
‘Verharmlosungsstrategie’ to make the harmful harmless
Having a female party leader or candidate is part of a political strategy encapsulated in the German term Verharmlosungsstrategie. It is strategy to make radical parties seem more harmless. Stereotypically women are associated with being soft, kind and gentle. All terms that one would not normally characterise right-wing parties with. Since women are perceived as less dangerous, threatening and radical, extremist parties want to use that image to appeal to a broader electorate. Lea Lochau, from the anti-fascist Amadeu Antonion foundation, notices that this is a strategy that has been applied since the 90s.
Meloni denying that her party is fascist even though she was part of a neo-fascist party’s youth group is a perfect example for extremist women being seen as innocuous, and thus given liberty to radicalise undetected.
Weidel repeating that her party is “conservative liberal” also fits into this superficial make over Le Pen was a pioneer in that domain. She redesigned the radical FN, that she inherited from her recently deceased father Jean-Marie Le Pen. Not only did the change the name to Rassemblement Nationale, but she performed a de-démonisastion of the party. This meant that she expelled a number of party members that were publicly deemed racists, antisemitic or Pétainite. The success of this strategy is obvious when comparing the RN’s wins in elections to the FN.
Promotion of traditional values
Women in leading positions of right-wing parties are also a way of promoting the traditional values they want to sell. These gendered values find their peak in women being presented as mothers. The stereotypical female role is that of a mother who looks out for their children, nurtures and cares for them. Just like mothers do that for newborns, right-wing parties capitalise in that domain by marketing female candidates as mothers to the nation. They will defend their people from any danger from immigration and loss of sovereignty to battling ‘woke’ ideas.
The candidates themselves play into this scheme with Meloni wanting more support for mothers and Le Pen more welfare state. Comparing Berlusconi and Meloni during their respective campaigns, it becomes visible that where Berlusconi accentuated his macho attitude, Meloni put the focus on her femininity. This eventually led to her success.
Yet, this phenomenon is not restricted to use femininity as a means to attract voters, but it goes to the whole spectrum of traditional, conservative values extremist parties promote. Meloni, for example, during her campaign repeatedly introduced herself as a woman, a mother and a Christian. Le Pen, already in the late 2010s, in an interview with the rfi called herself a “modern emancipated woman and a divorced working mum who loved animals.”
Rereading this passage, one might come to realise that there are inconsistencies with this reason for choosing female candidates. If the values of extremist-right wing parties are traditional, then why be represented by a single mum (Meloni), a twice divorced woman (Le Pen) and a lesbian with a Swiss partner born Sri Lanka (Weidel)? Moreover, all three women have careers, whereas extremist right-wing parties are in favour of house-wives from the 1930s.
Electorate appeal
Nominating female candidates in extremist parties is one of the many ways that right-wing parties want to appeal to the masses; even though right-wing voters are typically male.
For example, according to a 2024 survey, 25% of 45- to 59-year-old men would vote the AfD, whereas only 12% of women of the same age gap would do so. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s FN only managed to secure 11% of women’s votes compared to 26% of male votes. This trend only changed with Marine Le Pen entering the leading political stage.
After the de-demonisation which polished RN’s image in 2011, female votes started to increase by 2017. In the elections last year, Le Pen was very popular among 30-40 year-old women as she represented a strong woman who could not be pushed around by men. Moreover, a significant share of Meloni’s supporters for the 2018 elections, for example, were female.
This shows how incremental it is for right-wing parties to mobilise female voters. This is exactly where the value of female candidates can be observed. Following the logic of the halo effect, women tend to vote women because of a cognitive bias.
Sociologist Katrine Fangen, in an interview with the Norwegian magazine framtide, explains that “it can be a strategy that they want to address women to can identify more with a female leader.” Additionally, having a female candidate also attracts male votes. Based on gender biases in the intuitive heuristics that voters use when deciding who to vote for, Chiao et al revealed that men are more likely to vote for attractive female candidates. Therefore, the choice of a female candidate can arguably be explained by pure and unadulterated sexism.
Sexism or equality?
Of course, it could be argued that writing this article is sexist. Is this text suggesting positive discrimination? Or that the Italian Prime Minster, the most popular figure of the RN and the Afd chancellor candidate not good politicians? Given the backgrounds of the three women – Le Pen worked as a lawyer and Weidel studied VWL and BWL ‘economics and buisness administration’ – nobody can deny this.
Yet, it would be naïve to not question why clearly anti-feminist parties are being represented by young, beautiful, blue-eyed and blond-haired white women. This anti-feminism becomes obvious in comparing female percentages in the parties and the parliaments.
At the beginning of Meloni’s term, female representation in the parliament dropped from 35% to 31%. The RN since the 2024 elections has 33.3%female politicians in the Assemblée Nationale. In the current Bundestag, there are nine women out 88 Members for the AFD.
This is frankly shocking. Regardless of the candidates’ qualifications, the reason for chosing women to represent radical right-wing parties is sexist. As Lea Lochau stated in an interview with Swiss Radio: “Even though equality is suggested, it is anti-feminism that is being propagated.”
Katharina Kayser is a second year "European Studies with the French Pathway" student at King's College London.
