2 FRAUKE PETRY THE POPULIST PARVENU Illustration by Denise Nestor for POLITICO

In 2013, after a chemical company she started with her mother went bankrupt, Frauke Petry cofounded the anti-euro Alternative for Germany (AfD) and quickly became one of its stars. Last year, following an internal power struggle, she became the party’s de facto leader, steering it to electoral success by veering away from its Euroskeptic roots to focus squarely on migration.

Petry’s insurgency is discomfiting for another prominent German woman: Angela Merkel. The chancellor, who took power 11 years ago, will likely extend her run in next year’s elections. Until now, Germany seemed largely immune to the anti-globalization populist furies that shook up politics across the Continent in recent years — and, with Donald Trump’s victory last month, in the United States. But the migration crisis that began in 2015 changed the political dynamic in Europe’s most powerful country. If it continues, it will send even stronger tremors across the Continent.

The AfD made inroads in regional elections this year, surpassing Merkel’s conservatives for the first time, in a state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in September. On its own, the party won’t defeat Merkel; its ambitions are for now limited to winning its first seats in the Bundestag. But Petry’s outsider force is more in tune with the prevailing mood in the Western world than the establishment parties — and that makes the chemist the German political leader to watch.

True to her every-woman image, Petry showed up for an interview with POLITICO wearing jeans and a knit cap. She began with an apology: “I’ll try to be concise, but I don’t always succeed.”

Your biography is not that different from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s. Do you see yourself as having a similar background?

Let’s look at it closely. She’s a scientist, that’s a similarity. But she was born in the West and I was born in the East. Her family migrated from West Germany to East Germany and we moved from East to West. I’m the mother of four children; she has none. She was broadly loyal to the [East German] system, while I was raised in a household very critical of it. I would say there are probably more differences than similarities.

Were you politically active before you helped start the AfD in 2013?

Having grown up in both German states, I’ve always been very interested in politics. But I was not a member of any party. I purposely tried to avoid such structures. Everyone can understand why I did so in the East. Party membership would never have been an option for me. But I also had the impression as a young adult that many of the structures of the large parties in the West were similar to those in the East.

Is preserving national identity the core of the AfD’s ideology?

Whether a party really needs an ideology is a philosophical question. The AfD tries not to have one. But of course every political movement has an overall concept. If we put the mission statements of the different German parties side by side, we can see that there aren’t any patriotic parties in Germany anymore except for the AfD and the conservative wing of CSU, [the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s center-right conservatives].

Could you imagine Germany leaving the EU?

That depends on the developments over the next few years. It depends on how the Brexit question is resolved — whether the British are driven out at a high cost. We know that the Wilders party in the Netherlands has been pushing a referendum for years. If the Dutch leave and the Austrians also consider it, then I think the question will also be raised in Germany.

The refugee crisis has driven support for the AfD from about 3 percent in polls in mid-2015 to 15 percent today. Do you worry your support will diminish once the crisis is brought under control?

Let’s turn the question around: Where is there any indication that the refugee issue in Europe is anywhere close to being resolved? The migration issue is just one of many. We didn’t choose it any more than German citizens chose it.

Germany has millions of Turks and other foreigners living in the country. Is the AfD willing to spend money on their integration?

First of all, it’s an erroneous assumption to believe that more money for state programs will lead to better integration. What’s more important — something that is still ignored by Germany’s major parties — is the question of whether integration is feasible at all.

“Why should it be the duty of Europe and Germany to integrate millions of Northern Africans into Europe?” — Frauke Petry

The key to successful integration is the academically capable and socially willing immigrant himself. The AfD believes it’s simply impossible to integrate millions of people, who are functional illiterates, who come from countries with a fundamentally different cultural background when it comes to social standards and civil liberties. Why should it be the duty of Europe and Germany to integrate millions of Northern Africans into Europe?

How do you envision German society in five to 10 years?

The failures of the last two decades, if not more, can’t be undone within five years.

Germany has had disastrous family policy for more than 50 years. Since 1965, the birth rate in Germany has been declining — and the current increase in birth rates is not based on German women giving birth to more children, but due to foreigners having more children.

The AfD promotes a traditional family model, because children are usually born out of this model. We are tolerant and say everyone can live the way they want to. However, the state should not just subsidize any lifestyle, except for those lifestyles that contribute to a healthy age pyramid.

Should gays and lesbians in Germany be able to marry and adopt children?

This is a total minority problem. In numbers, the question is irrelevant. Gays and lesbians have, for the most part, the same rights in Germany. This is totally okay, and the AfD stands by this.

They can’t get married and cannot adopt children as couples.

You know, in Germany, there are so many parents who would like to adopt children. The question whether gays and lesbians, of all people, want to adopt children is not at all an issue when it comes to the size of the population that we have to take care of. We have to make sure that Germany, as a population and as a nation, does not disappear entirely. And gays and lesbians — sorry to say — can’t make a significant contribution.

In all likelihood, the AfD will win enough support in next year’s national elections to enter parliament. How do you see Germany’s political landscape shifting?

Even though it’s plummeting in polls, I assume Merkel’s Christian Democrats will be the strongest party once again. But this will only last as long as Frau Merkel stays on board, and the CDU doesn’t do anything to counter its own decline.

Our goal for 2017 is to become a strong opposition in the German parliament. For 2021, we want more. We’re aware that this might sound ambitious, but we want to become the strongest party.

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