The limits of minority solidarity: Populist radical right women leaders on social media

The 2024 European Parliament elections underscored the increasing success of populist radical right parties, such as Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), France’s Rassemblement National (RN), and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). These parties are dominated by women leaders: Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, and Alice Weidel, respectively. We reckon there are numerous studies on how populist radical right male leaders (e.g. Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands) embrace homonationalism and strategically mobilize the cause of gay rights against Islam. A similar weaponisation of women’s rights has been adopted by Le Pen through femonationalism. However, we know little about how populist radical right party leaders that belong to gender/sexual minorities themselves position themselves on these issues. Therefore, in this paper we explore how populist radical right women leaders approach the issue of gender and sexual minorities (i.e., women, homosexuals, trans people). Methodologically, we will engage in a comparative study of TikTok and X (Twitter) posts by western Europe’s most influential female populist radical right leaders, namely Giorgia Meloni (Italy), Marine Le Pen (France), and Alice Weidel (Germany). We focus on the period from 2022 up to the present, and thus a timeframe during which issues related to the rights of gender/sexual minorities have been increasingly salient in these three countries.