Who Is Susanne Thier, Sebastian Kurz's Partner And Potential Wife?

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has the potential to become the first millennial to lead a European country after his party, Austrian People’s Party (OVP), won in the national election Sunday. At the age of 31, some have wondered if Kurz is married.

While Kurz hasn’t walked down the aisle, he’s in a relationship with Susanne Their. She works at the finance ministry in Austria. Kurz met her when he was 18 years old. The two headed to the polls together Sunday to cast their votes. She stood at his side when he addressed his followers on the day of the election.

“It is time for change in this country. Today is a strong order for us, to change this country, and I say thank you to you all who made this possible,” he said to the crowd. “I'm overwhelmed, I am happy, and I look forward to working for Austria.”

While Kurz has been touted as Austria’s Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, it would be harder for some people to draw a comparison between Thiers and Brigitte Macron. She is 24 years older than her husband and used to be his teacher.

But the French president’s wife doesn’t see a problem with their age gap.

“There are times in your life where you need to make vital choices,” she said in an interview with Elle France in August. “And for me, that was it. So, what has been said over the 20 years, it's insignificant.”

“Of course, we have breakfast together, me and my wrinkles, him with his youth, but it's like that,” she said about being older than her husband. “If I did not make that choice, I would have missed out on my life. I had a lot of happiness with my children and, at the same time, felt I had to live ‘this love’ as [a French poet] used to say, to by fully happy.”

If the husband were 20 years old, no one would bat an eye.

“If I was 20 years older than my wife, nobody would think for a single second that we couldn’t be legitimately together,” Macron told Le Parisien. “It's because she is 20 years older than me that a lot of people say, ‘this relationship can't be tenable, it can't be possible.’”

Further information about Thier and her relationship with Kurz was not immediately known.

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella