European Women Mayors News

Women Mayors from Europe

> Italian mayor resents foreign workers who bring prosperity

> Women protected by women

> Saint-Tropez mayor tells tourist to stay away in July and August

> England's women mayors condemn far-right riots

> No breakthrough for women in Romania’s local politics

Monfalcone Mayor Anna Maria Cisint resents the people without whom there would be no shipbuilding in the town

ITALY

Italian mayor resents the very people who contribute to her town’s prosperity

September 2024: In November of last year (2023), Fincantieri, Europe’s largest shipbuilder, launched one of the world’s most advanced cruise ships in Monfalcone, near Trieste. Built for the Hamburg-based cruise line TUI Cruises, the ship was designed by the Italian shipbuilder to set new standards in maritime sustainability. The launch occurred in front of dignitaries from across Italy, Europe and beyond and representatives from Fincantieri’s 8,500-strong Monfalcone workforce.

The company is rightly proud of its workforce which is made up of 1,700 Italians and 6,800 skilled foreign labourers. The majority of the foreign employees come from Bangladesh, a country with a tradition of shipbuilding. While Fincantieri, the labour unions and local businesses agree that the shipyard would struggle to operate without foreign manpower, their presence is resented by Monfalcone’s far-right mayor Anna Maria Cisint*. Her objection to the Bangladeshis is that they practise Muslim religion, bring their families to Italy and, lately, play cricket, a sport which she argues is not Italian.

Mayor Cisint, who was re-elected two years ago, has in the past complained about women wearing burkinis, worshippers praying too loudly and the smell of Bangladeshi cooking. “These people want to bring Bangladesh to Monfalcone,” the Mayor said.

The tension between the Mayor and the town’s Muslim residents came to a head last year, incidentally around the time the town’s largest employer launched its latest ship when the city banned prayers at the local Islamic centre, where migrant workers and their families have gathered and worshipped peacefully for two decades.

Anna Maria Cisint has been accused of using the Bangladeshi community for political purposes to please her right-wing friends in Rome. (The Mayor’s re-election was supported by Italy’s two far-right parties, the Brothers of Italy and the League.)

According to London’s Financial Times, Mayor Cisint claimed that Muslim workers in Italy are practising “the most fundamentalist Islam” and pose “an enormous danger for our cities, territories, culture and freedom”. The newspaper also spoke to Monfalcone residents from Bangladesh and North Africa who believe they are under attack. “It is a basic right to worship and teach our children the tenets of our faith.”

Mayor Cisint, who in June was elected to the European Parliament, has now banned children from playing cricket within the town’s boundaries. The Mayor believes cricket harms “the essence of Italy’s culture”. In a recent interview, she told a journalist from the BBC that it was her duty to defend Christian values in her town. “Our history is being erased. It’s like it doesn’t matter anymore. Everything is changing for the worse,” the Mayor said.

In a Facebook video, Anna Maria Cisint insists that cricket was not the only ball game banned from the town. According to her, the cricket story was fake. “Football and basketball have been banned from built-up areas for some time, with cricket recently being added to the list due to its rising popularity.”

The Mayor claims that the thousands of workers who help to build some of Europe’s most advanced ships have given “zero” to Monfalcone. “They are free to go and play cricket anywhere else, outside of Monfalcone.”

The president of Monfalcone’s small business community countered “Monfalcone would be a ghost town if there were no foreigners.”

* Since being elected to the European Parliament, Cisint’s mayoral duties at the Comune di Monfalcone have been performed by Deputy Mayor (Vicesindaco Reggente) Garritani Antonio.

GERMANY

Women protected by women

September 2024: Last Friday (30 August 2024), there was a knife attack on a bus in Siegen in western Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia). A 32-year-old woman stabbed several passengers before being overwhelmed by two other female passengers. Shortly after the crime became public, rumours began circulating on social media that the perpetrator was a Muslim woman. As is now all too common, the authors of the posts used xenophobic and often racist language and made no effort to check the facts.

The proliferation and influence of false, often deliberately false, social media posts is so great that traditional media are forced to report not just the facts but add background information about the people involved. So instead of a headline that a few years ago would have read ‘Knife attacker overwhelmed by women’, newspapers now wrote ‘Muslim mothers stopped German knife attacker’.

Even the town’s mayor felt compelled to inform the press that the stabber was a German with no immigration background, while the helpers were Muslims. “The perpetrator was a German woman and the heroes of this story were two young women with an immigrant background,” said Mayor Steffen Muess. According to the Mayor, the two women had pounced on the perpetrator and held her down, thus preventing worse things from happening. “We have to make sure that we rely on facts again, on honest answers, on well-intentioned answers, on good answers, on the right answers,” appealed the mayor.

According to the local newspaper Siegener Zeitung, the two women overwhelmed the perpetrator and wrestled the knife from her. “These women probably saved people's lives,” the newspaper wrote.

FRANCE

Saint-Tropez Mayor appeals to tourists to stay away in the summer

August 2024: Saint-Tropez, once an idyllic fishing village on the Côte d'Azur, is now struggling with the consequences of mass tourism. In the summer months of July and August, over 80,000 visitors a day flock to the town, which has a population of just 4,000.

In an interview with British broadcaster BBC, Mayor Sylvie Siri said enough was enough and appealed to tourists not to come in the summer. In the spring and autumn, the town’s original charm can be much better appreciated and visitors will find focal residents less irritable and more welcoming.

Mayor Siri outlined her plans to make Saint-Tropez a year-round destination. “We do not want to appeal just to those who enjoy a lively, sometimes rowdy, beach culture but also to travellers who prefer to experience the town as it once was, or at least near enough.” Nostalgically she talked of fishing boats that deliver their catch daily, wisteria and lilac that fill the narrow street with the scents of spring and uncrowded beaches that are perfect for strolls.

Saint-Tropez is not the town of 1958 when Brigit Bardot bought a house on its beachfront and hosted parties for film stars like Sacha Distel, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon (who died in August 2024). Gunter Sachs, her German husband from 1966 to 1969, poured a shower of rose petals from a helicopter over the garden of the house as a testimony of his love for the French film star.

During the following decades, bohemian artists and filmmakers of the French New Wave were replaced by the rich and famous and their hangers-on. In the summer months, yachts and power boats now vastly outnumber traditional fishing boats.

Saint-Tropez is not the only popular French destination that suffers from over tourism. Colmar a town of 70,000 in Alsace, is visited by more than 3.5 million travellers a year, while the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel (Normandy) attracts 1.3 million visitors a year. The Chateau of Versailles, in a town of 87,000 residents, is visited by 6.7 million people every year.

BRITAIN

Women mayors join condemnation of far-right riots sweeping across England

August 2024: Towns and cities across England have been targeted by racist, anti-immigrant violence perpetrated by far-right mobs of thugs. Groups of mostly white men, often masked, attacked hotels housing asylum seekers, mosques and even police stations while chanting racist slogans. Swastikas and Nazi salutes have been on display among the far-right rioters who left a trail of destruction in English communities over the weekend (4/5 August 2024).

The violent disturbances started after a mass stabbing in Southport, a seaside resort north of Liverpool. Three young girls were killed in the attack with eight other children and two adults seriously injured at a dance class in a residential street of the town. In the aftermath of the attack, misinformation spread online claiming the perpetrator had been a Muslim migrant when in fact the individual arrested was a teenager born in Cardiff, Wales. Far-right, so-called social media influencers used the stabbing to stir up hatred against Muslims, immigrants and people of colour in general.

The first riot took place in Southport on 30 July after a peaceful vigil for the stabbing victims was taken over by far-right activists, many from outside the town, who went on to attack a nearby mosque. During the attack, more than 50 police officers were injured. In the following days, the violent protests spread across England. While most of the violence took place in north-east and north-west England there were also disturbances in Aldershot, a garrison town in southern England and even in London. The British capital witnessed the biggest far-right rally in years.

Politicians from all main parties swiftly and unequivocally condemned the racist thuggery. However, members of right-wing political groups have accused the police of treating nationalist and white protesters more harshly on the streets than they do, for example, pro-Palestine demonstrators. Britain’s newly elected Labour government has announced the establishment of a national policing unit to tackle violent disorder. According to police reports, some 400 arrests have already been made.

Some of the most appalling riots took place in Sunderland on Friday and Saturday (2/3 August) when some 500 people, including women and children, assembled in the city centre to demonstrate. The gathering quickly descended into violence when masked teenagers and men started to throw missiles, including bricks, stones, beer barrels and scaffolding poles, at riot police. According to local media, a police station was ransacked and a neighbouring Citizens’ Advice Bureau was set alight. Cars were set on fire, shops looted and people attacked.

Kim McGuinness, the region’s mayor, reacted with shock and disgust to the far-right riots in Sunderland but emphasised that the violence did not represent the city, the region and, indeed, the people. “They will not define our reputation,” the mayor said. “They will not define our place in the world.”

Mayor McGuinness added the people of Sunderland were warm, friendly, hard-working and, most of all, proud. “That is the reputation of this great place. This is a city of compassion and community, culture and creativity.” (In Britain’s June 2024 general election, the right-wing Reform UK party came second to Labour but well ahead of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.)

Kim McGuiness won the immediate backing from a fellow English woman mayor. Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones said in a statement: “I utterly condemn the violence, antisocial behaviour and criminality we have seen over the past week in communities across the country.” In Rotherham, some 22 kilometres south-west of Doncaster, rioters attack a hotel housing 250 asylum seekers, including women and children. The thugs managed to break through the police cordon and enter the premises. A police spokesman said the rioters attempted to set the building on fire to cause serious harm and death to those inside.

According to The Guardian newspaper, the hotel was not a stranger to protests. “It is contentious locally and had become the scene of anti-immigration outrage in the past – though there were few who anticipated what a terrifying turn Sunday (4 August) would take. (In Rotherham the right-wing Reform UK party won 30% of the vote, well ahead of the third-placed Liberal Democrats on 7.6%. Labour won the seat with 45%)

Britain’s Jews also voiced disgust at the display of Nazi symbols and salutes. The Jewish Board of Deputies condemned the riot outside the Southport mosque in a statement. It said it “unreservedly condemns the attack on the Southport Mosque, the targeting of its Muslim worshippers, and the harming of police officers. There can be no place for this kind of violence or agitation aimed at inciting communal tension.”

Further reading: Dutch women mayors

ITALY

Florence and other Italian regional centres elected women mayors

July 2024: Until now, Italy has had the reputation of being a country where women have made little impact on local politics. It is estimated that only between seven and nine per cent of the country's mayors are women. But perhaps this will change. In local elections which took place over two rounds in June 2024, women managed to win mayoral positions in important regional centres.

The election result in Florence has attracted the most attention. In the city where Michelangelo grew up, a woman was elected mayor for the first time. Sara Funaro from the centre-left Democratic Party won convincingly against her opponent Eike Schmidt from the right-wing political camp. Although Schmidt, who was director of the Uffizi Gallery from 2015 until the beginning of this year, is known far beyond the city, he was convincingly defeated by Sara Funaro.

Women were also successful in other important regional centres. For example in Prato (Tuscany), Perugia (Umbria) and Bergamo (Lombardy) Commentators wrote Italian maschilismo suffered a defeat. Others also spoke of a Meloni effect. In Italy, the Prime Minister (Giorgia Meloni) and the leader of the opposition (Ely Schlein) are both women. FULL LIST & ANALYSIS

NORTHERN IRELAND

Former Kenyan refugee becomes Northern Ireland’s first black mayor

June 2024: A woman from Kenya has made history in Northern Ireland after taking over as Mayor (1) of Derry and Strabane (2). Lilian Seenoi-Barr is the first black female mayor in the province, which is part of the United Kingdom. The SDLP (3) politician already caused a stir last year when she became the first black female politician elected to public office in Northern Ireland.

Lilian Seenoi-Barr came to Derry as a refugee in 2010. She left Kenya because her son's autism was misunderstood in her home country and other parts of Africa. She did not want to put her child in danger, she said at the time. Before fleeing to the UK, she worked in Kenya for organisations that educated women and girls of the Maasai tribe about the dangers of early marriages and female circumcision.

In Northern Ireland, Lilian Seenoi-Barr continued to campaign on gender rights issues for Maasai women. She has made a name for herself for her strong criticism of forced marriage and female genital mutilation. She is also the founder and director of the North West Migrants Forum, which supports black and minority ethnic communities who live in Northern Ireland. At the height of the global Black Lives Matter protests in 2021, she, as the district councillor, organised demonstrations and spoke out against systemic racism.

In early June, around 300 people gathered in Derry Guildhall to witness Seenoi-Barr being presented with the Mayor's Chain of Office. Among those in attendance were family and friends, a delegation of Kenyan political representatives and members of various ethnic minorities from across the Island of Ireland.

At her inauguration, the new mayor described herself as a Maasai woman and a Derry girl. She thanked her fellow citizens for their hospitality since her arrival 14 years ago. "I have witnessed the warmth and kindness of the Derry that I know and have loved with all my heart, through the kindness of strangers and the outpouring of solidarity and support," she said.

But, according to Colum Eastwood, the leader of her SDLP party, the newly inaugurated mayor has also had to face a deluge of abuse and death threats from around the world. She has been the target of racism, including from American far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who in 2022 was ordered to pay £1.2bn for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in America was a hoax. Jones has an audience of more than two million followers on social media platforms. On X, formerly Twitter, he has posted about the new Mayor of Derry and Strabane using language including ‘invaders’, ‘replacement migration’, ‘conquer the west’ and ‘Ireland is in the crosshairs’.

Colum Eastwood condemned the racially motivated attacks as attempts by far-right political actors hell-bent on spreading misinformation to fuel their appalling ideology.

“These people don’t care about places like Derry and Strabane, they don’t care about the people who live here and have made a home for their families here. The hate at the heart of their politics could not stand more starkly against the compassion that Lilian has shown for the people of Derry, people across this island and those in need even further afield.”

“Lilian will be an excellent Mayor precisely because she cares deeply about people regardless of their background, she is fearless in her advocacy and she works every single day to bring communities closer together. We will not be cowed by people like Alex Jones or his band of hate.”

(1) Mayors in Northern Ireland fulfil ceremonial functions and serve one-year terms.

(2) Derry City (Londonderry) and Strabane is a local government district that was created on 1 April 2015 by merging the City of Derry District and Strabane District. It covers most of the northwest of Northern Ireland. The local authority is Derry City and Strabane District Council.

(3) The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland.

GERMANY

A small town in Germany faces up to the consequences of global politics

June 2024: When Russia attacked Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Annekathrin Hoppe had only been Mayor of Schwedt on the German-Polish border for a few months. The town of 34,000 inhabitants had been economically dependent on imports of Russian oil like no other city in Germany. The local PCK refinery, which was and is majority-owned by the Russian oil company Rosneft, supplied almost 95 per cent of Berlin's and Brandenburg’s businesses and consumers with fuels such as petrol, heating oil and aviation fuel. The refinery employed around 1,200 people. In addition, more than 2,000 employees worked for supply companies. In the months following the Russian attack, Germany began to reduce oil imports from Russia and look for alternative sources of supply.

In an interview at the time, Annekathrin Hoppe said that she would not have believed that, as mayor of a relatively small town, she would have to deal with the consequences of world politics. “I went to sleep at night with the issue on my mind and woke up with it in the morning,” she said, pointing out that Schwedt without the PCK refinery was unthinkable. “1,200 jobs in Schwedt and the surrounding area depended directly on the refinery, and at least the same number indirectly.”

Today, Annekathrin Hoppe is more optimistic. “We mustn't be dependent on oil,” she says. “The transition to new technologies would have to have happened anyway, but now probably a little sooner.” Nevertheless, she is concerned about the immediate future of the PCK refinery. PCK is majority-owned by the Russian state-owned company Rosneft - even though Germany controls Rosneft's shares through a trust administration (Treuhand). Rosneft is expected to withdraw completely from the refinery in sell its shares. But it is still unclear how and when it will happen.

However, the mayor believes that the refinery is currently operating well and that preparations for hydrogen production are continuing. The refinery has been running without Russian oil for almost a year and a half now. Russia has been replaced by other oil producers such as Kazakhstan.

If uncertainty about the refinery was not enough, the mayor of Schwedt is also worried about job losses at the paper manufacturer Leipa, the town's second-largest employer. The company has announced plans to cut around 100 jobs and close a production line. “On the other hand, Leipa is working on positioning itself for the future with new products,” said Hoppe. For example, the processing of natural and used clothing fibres is to be tested in a new laboratory.

The mayor confirmed that despite a shortfall of ten million euros of business tax revenues, the construction of a development centre for start-ups and workshops will go ahead in 2025. Of the costs totalling 18 million euros, Schwedt will have to contribute some 900,000 euros over four years. Subject to subsidies from the European Union and the German federal and Brandenburg state governments, the mayor also pushes for dedicated rail links between the town’s harbour and the ports of Rostock and Szczecin.