Frauke Petry: The force behind Germany’s rising nationalist party

http://www.france24.com/en/20160313-frauke-petry-rising-force-germany-right-wing-challenging-merkel-migrant-policies



Frauke Petry, leader of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party at a press conference in Berlin on February 22, 2016.

Frauke Petry: The force behind Germany’s rising nationalist party
Latest update : 2016-03-13

As Chancellor Angela Merkel fights to defend her policies, one of her biggest threats is a politician who in many ways looks like a younger, fresher version of the nation’s current leader. Like Merkel, Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Petry, is a woman who excelled in the sciences and hails from East Germany. And like Merkel at the beginning of her political career, Petry, 40, is seen as a bold alternative to the status quo reflecting the zeitgeist of the moment.

But the similarities don’t extend far beyond that.

Where Merkel was predictable, Petry is provocative. Merkel has been at the helm of an established political party for 26 years, while Petry controls a nascent party that is just three years old. And, most saliently, Merkel has opened her nation to more than a million refugees, while Petry has said that migrants who try to enter Germany illegally should be shot.

So who is this politician pulling to the right?

Petry was born in 1975 in Dresden and, after reunification, moved with her family to West Germany while she was still a teenager. She studied chemistry at the University of Reading in England and earned a PhD from Göttingen University in Germany. She later founded a company that makes eco-friendly polyurethanes.